– FOREWORD: WUWT readers probably remember when the now head of NASA GISS, Dr. Gavin Schmidt, could not stand to be seen on the same stage with Dr. Roy Spencer. Gavin decided to hide offstage while Dr. Spencer had finished his interview with John Stossel, rather than be subject to some tough questions Dr. Spencer might have posed in a debate with him on live TV. Gavin knew he’d lose, so he acted like a child on national TV and hid from Dr. Spencer offstage. It was one of the truly defining moments demonstrating the lack of integrity by mainstream climate scientists.

Now, Dr. Schmidt seems to be hiding from those inconvenient questions again, as Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. writes below. Dr. Schmidt also hides from me, having blocked WUWT on Twitter, so I’d appreciate it if some other WUWT readers would let him know of this publication. Dr. Schmidt is welcome to publish a rebuttal (or simply answer the questions) here if he wishes. He has my email. – Anthony Watts

Questions for Gavin Schmidt – Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York

by Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.

On March 18 2015, I submitted a set of questions to Gavin Schmidt, Director of NASA GISS, who initially seemed inclined to answer and ask some of his own. However, he now is not even replying to my e-mails. If he were a scientist without leadership responsibilities in the climate community, he certainly can choose to ignore my request. However, he is a Director of a major US federal laboratory and, as such, he (or his staff) should be responding to such requests. As of today’s date, he has not answered any of the questions.

By posting these questions, I am encouraging others to respond to the science issues I have raised, as well as be used in the future when Gavin is required to testify, such at a House and/or Senate committee. In your comments, please focus on the scientific issues and avoid any comments on motives, personal attacks etc.

My questions to Gavin follow:

Gavin,

Below are my questions that you agreed to look at in your tweet. I have copied to Judy as her weblog is an appropriate place to present this Q&A if she agrees. Judy might also want to edit and/or add to the questions.

Thank you for doing this. It shows that there is room for constructive debate and discussion on these issues.

There is also a powerpoint talk on this at http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/Lorenz/Lorenz_Workshop_Talks/Stephens.pdf

Among the conclusions is that

“Climate models fail to reproduce the observed annual cycle in all components of the albedo with any realism, although they broadly capture the correct proportions of surface and atmospheric contributions to the TOA albedo. A high model bias of albedo has also persisted since the time of CMIP3,mostly during the boreal summer season. Perhaps more importantly, models fail to produce the same degree of interannual constraint on the albedo variability nor do they reproduce the same degree of hemispheric symmetry.”

Q: How do you respond to this critique of climate models with respect to the GISS model?

2. In 2005 Jim Hansen made the following statement regarding the GISS model [https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/1116592hansen.pdf]

“The Willis et al. measured heat storage of 0.62 W/m2 refers to the decadal mean for the upper 750 m of the ocean. Our simulated 1993-2003 heat storage rate was 0.6 W/m2 in the upper 750 m of the ocean. The decadal mean planetary energy imbalance, 0.75 W/m2 , includes heat storage in the deeper ocean and energy used to melt ice and warm the air and land. 0.85 W/m2 is the imbalance at the end of the decade.

Certainly the energy imbalance is less in earlier years, even negative, especially in years following large volcanic eruptions. Our analysis focused on the past decade because: (1) this is the period when it was predicted that, in the absence of a large volcanic eruption, the increasing greenhouse effect would cause the planetary energy imbalance and ocean heat storage to rise above the level of natural variability (Hansen et al., 1997), and (2) improved ocean temperature measurements and precise satellite altimetry yield an uncertainty in the ocean heat storage, ~15% of the observed value, smaller than that of earlier times when unsampled regions of the ocean created larger uncertainty.”

Q: What is the GISS update to this summary including the current estimates for the imbalance?

3. There are questions on the skill of the multi-decadal climate prediction models in terms of their use for regional impact studies for the coming decades. These models have been tested in hindcast runs. What are your answers to the following:

When run in hindcast (over the last few decades) where the forcings of added CO2 and other human inputs of greenhouse gases and aerosols are reasonably well known:

Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting average observed regional climate statistics?

Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting CHANGES in observed regional climate statistics?

Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting observed regional extreme weather statistics?

Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting CHANGES in observed regional extreme weather statistics?

4. The issue of value-added by regional downscaling has been discussed in

“…downscaling has practical value but with the very important caveat that it should be used for model sensitivity experiments and not as predictions….. It is therefore inappropriate to present [downscaling of multi-decadal climate projections] results to the impacts community as reflecting more than a subset of possible future climate risks.”

Q: Can regional dynamic and/or statistical downscaling be used to increase the prediction (projection) skill beyond that of available by interpolation to finer scales directly from the multi-decadal global climate models predictions?

5. There is considerable debate as to where heat has been going in recent years since the temperature increases at the surface and troposphere have flattened. On example of this discussion is in the post

Q: Since it is claimed that a large fraction of the heat from human input of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has been going into the deeper ocean over the last 10-15 years (as an attempt to explain the “hiatus”), why is the global average surface temperature trend still used as the primary metric to diagnose global warming?

“This paper diagnoses the spatial mean and the spatial gradient of the aerosol radiative forcing in comparison with those of well-mixed green-house gases (GHG). Unlike GHG, aerosols have much greater spatial heterogeneity in their radiative forcing. We present a measurement-based estimation of the spatial gradient of aerosol radiative forcing. The NGoRF is introduced to represent the potential effect of the heterogeneous radiative forcing on the general circulation and regional climate.The heterogeneous diabatic heating can modulate the gradient in horizontal pressure field and atmospheric circulations, thus altering the regional climate.”

…shows that such heterogeneous forcing also exists for land use/land cover change.

Q: What is the relative role of land use/land cover change relative as well as added aerosols with respect to added CO2 and other greenhouse gases in affecting local and regional climate and changes in regional climate statistics?

“We present this alternate tool to assess the magnitude of global warming based on assessing the magnitudes of the annual global average radiative imbalance, and the annual global average radiative forcing and feedbacks. Among our findings is the difficulty of reconciling the three terms.”

Q: Please provide your best estimate for the terms.

7. The book

DISASTERS AND CLIMATE CHANGE Rightful Place of Science Series

Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes by Roger Pielke, Jr.

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/publications/special/dcc/index.html

discusses the role of changes in climate in recent decades on disasters.

Q: What is your conclusion on the role of changes in extreme weather as they affect society during the last several decades?

I have asked why these so called bastions of “Climatescience” do such a disservice to Science – and whilst I have a few ideas – (which range from the unsavoury to downright fraud) – I have had the great pleasure of saying that time will prove only one side or the other right.
First it was said by some that the Pause would not last a decade.
Then it was 15 years.
I wonder what will be said when we “Pause” as we enter a third decade?

@Chris
Considering that the current pause basically started after the 1998 El Niño, no one should hang their hat on that conclusion. I’m firmly in the camp of “don’t have a clue” with regards to the next few years. If past is prologue, my own personal experience is that it’s getting darn cold, but that would erroneously conflate “local” with “global”.

@Chris Schoneveld May 19, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Chris, may be in the short term, but if a La Nina follows it may bring down the temperature in following years such that the ‘pause’ will then lengthen once more.

Not if you’re right and they’re wrong, and you have a 97% consensus confirming this fact prior to the acquisition of any information on those “other opinions”, in which case psychopathic is probably more appropriate than unscientific.

Why should anyone be surprised that anyone including Schmidt on the alarmist side would resist the temptation to answer the above questions, it would reveal their bias and ignorance of their chosen subject and that would predicate disaster which of course is unacceptable.

Gavin knows he’ll be grilled with these and even tougher questions by both House and Senate committees. He had better come up with some answers.
Legislation has been proposed to take climate modeling away from NASA and concentrate it in NOAA. That’s a step in the right direction, even though NOAA is no more honest than Gavin’s GISS.

Well I read Roger’s questions to Gavin very carefully, and must admit that I don’t understand the import of any of them.
But when it comes to House and Senate committees grilling anybody, I doubt if those people would ask Dr Schmidt ANY of those questions nor understand what the question means.
The times I have watched Dr Roy Spencer make a presentation to such committees, both in written form, which they had in hand before the public session, he was never allowed any where near enough time to get into the meat of any of these issues.
And frankly I am appalled at the way such people (even Gavin) are basically insulted by these no nothing blowhards in the Congress. What a change it would be, if we actually had legislators who actually were competent to be involved in such hearings. They are mostly idiots for sale.
Just my opinion of course.

Sold idiots. I agree.
In Vermont Senate debate Friday about renewable siting and community input, a Senator from the Northeast Kingdom speaking to attending to municipal plans, environments, conservation was publicly laughed at in a disgraceful public display by “senators” from left side of the state who have plans for erecting more Industrial Wind Monsters in the Kingdom and, of course, winning bags of crony capital.
Citizens, in prior public input, were insulted by the legislators. Senators and citizens are laughed at and insulted in public. What does that tell us this is about? It is pure conceit and avarice.

George, let me rephrase the questions and I think that their importance will come into focus.
1: This paper shows that you can’t model seasons. Please explain how you can.
2: Your own supporter showed what should be a massive change in your model. How have you changed your model in response?
3: What did your models predict and how well did it work?
4: You can’t predict regional climate patterns at all, why are you making these predictions?
5: Where is the missing heat?
6: What Non-CO2 effects did you really include in your model?
7: Have there really been extreme weather changes?
Giving accurate answers to any of these questions will variously: tie Schmidt down into a storyline that has to be internally contradictory, admit that his model is extremely incomplete and has not been updated with new discoveries, or admit that all his predictions are wrong. As this is a public reply to someone who can fact check the entire piece, he cannot simply give vague handwave or outright lie as that will look even worse for him.

Ultimately, it’s the voters who keep sending these idiots back. Until the average voter cares more about the health of the country and less about what govt can do for him, there will be no change.
I’m of the opinion that after the coming collapse, we need to change the constitution so that only those who pay taxes and aren’t receiving income from govt should be allowed to vote.

George,
If they were “competent”…they wouldn’t be politicians. Few people seem to realize that we “ask” our government to solve issues like healthcare, climate change, etc., when in fact they have NO training in any of the fields that are required to even speak intelligently about these disciplines.
And I agree…first, they wouldn’t understand the question, and they certainly wouldn’t understand the answer.
Easy for someone trained in climate-speak to make them all look like the fools they are, and us all the more so for electing them.

As regards question 5, one should have added
a) Given that it is now claimed that a large fraction of the heat from human input of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has been going into the deeper ocean over the last 10-15 years (as an attempt to explain the “hiatus”), why was the same proportion of heat from human input of C02 and other greenhouse gases not going into the oceans in earlier years (ie., in the years when the land based thermometer record was showing a warming trend)?
b) What has changed about the physics of the atmosphere/ocean interaction, or the properties of CO2 which has caused the heat fron CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to no longer remain in the atmosphere, but instead to make their way into the deeper ocean?
c) Why are we no longer seeing the same planetary response to the effects of CO2 as were seen say during the period 1979 to 1997?
PS. I do not like the use of the expression heat. I gueass it is OK when discussing energy going into the oceans, but not so good when discussing the atmosphere, but I have used the wording used by Dr Pielke but expanded upon his question 5 to look at the inconsistencies that lie behind that question.

NASA has its hands full with Muslim outreach. I think that NOAA (who, according to their former mission statement, “know all, see all, understand all,”) could probably be a better fit for the arduous and lengthy task of tossing all the climate models in the can and flushing them.

MarkW at May 19, 2015 at 1:53 pm
“I’m of the opinion that after the coming collapse, we need to change the constitution so that only those who pay taxes and aren’t receiving income from govt should be allowed to vote.”
To that I think you should add a maximum of two terms for any politician so that we are getting new blood into the system – no 40-year serving Senator (or other elected position).
Additionally, I have wondered could you do away with Parties and make each a grass root candidate who serves the people who elected them. And additionally, donations to a candidate should be from the people with a maximum of say $1,000. No donations from any other sort. Keep it simple and local. Just my thoughts.

George,
Committee members are briefed or at least handed questions by their staff. Roy would find present committees a lot more accommodating than when ruled by Dumbocrats.
There are in fact on the relevant committees a number of members who are well versed in climate issues. They’re not all dopes. Some are medical doctors and others have at least some scientific education.
The members might not ask these questions exactly, but there is no shortage of simple questions that Gavin would find just as hard to answer. I’ve given the GOP representatives and senators from my region plenty of material.
Jorge,
Neat that you’re both named for the same Palestinian saint.
If there’s a GOP president in 2017, NASA will return to its real mission, dropping both “climate change” and Muslim outreach. Even a second President Clinton might cut back on the promotion of Islamic scientific achievements as the prime mission for the agency.

Then there is my Senator, who is/was forth in leadership in her party in the Senate, and who Wiki says has a Degree in Physical Education. This doesn’t necessarily mean, that she is not intelligent, since I know of people, who are probably way more intellegent than me, that have no Degrees. But it makes you wonder, who is determining our country’s future, and why it is that some one, that may not be that intellegent, thinks it is THEIR JOB to tell “smarter”/wiser people how to live their lives???

Sturgis;
“Gavin knows he’ll be grilled with these and even tougher questions by both House and Senate committees. He had better come up with some answers.”
That is probably the key he doesn’t want to give anything up now because he knows he will have to answer the same questions later and he doesn’t want to give anyone time to pick apart his answers now. This way he can spew what ever BS he wants, he will be proven wrong and picked apart but it will be later and not in the middle of the congress.

Surely his coming public grilling must weigh on his mind, but I doubt he’d reply to Pielke pere even if he weren’t about to be ritually humiliated and have his funding cut, if not zeroed out.
He may be saved by Obama this time, but the writing is on the wall. Gav and Kev may both be sent packing back to their native isles.

Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
I take the liberty of asking you two questions.
Q1.
Can you say which – if any – of your questions you think Gavin Schmidt could answer honestly without losing his job?
Q2.
In light of your answer to Q1, would you be willing to agree with me that the least dishonest response that Gavin Schmidt could make to your questions is for him to answer none of them?
Thanking you in anticipation of your replies
Richard

Forgive me intruding, but if Gavin cannot answer any of the questions honestly without losing his job, then it reveals that either he, or his employer, or both are dishonest. Even the “least dishonest response”…that of not answering any of them…is still dishonest.
His silence speaks volumes too.

Mosher
Newsflash- as a public servant he owes every US citizen an answer. I understand that some federal bureaucrats never quite catch on to that simple principle in our democracy. It appears to have gone over your head as well.

wrong again.
gavin doesnt work for any of you. Even when you are paid by the public your superiors still get to prioritize how your time is spent.
EVERY question that roger asks, he can answer for himself.
We all may pay gavin but he doesnt work for us. You dont get to ask him anything. and he is not responsible to answer any one of your questions.
pretty frickin simple.

“Mosher
Newsflash- as a public servant he owes every US citizen an answer. I understand that some federal bureaucrats never quite catch on to that simple principle in our democracy. It appears to have gone over your head as well.”
Ah no he doesnt.
My postman is a public servant. He has a boss. That boss is not me or you. He has a job description.
he is paid to perform that job. I dont get to demand answers from him on how the postal system works.
Answering questions from the public is not part of his job description.
Roger and you and me dont get to decide what Gavins job description is. You dont get to demand answers
Sorry, life is not burger king and you dont get things your way.

Mosher,
Schmidt is the “boss.” As director of GISS and a scientist he ought to be able to respond coherently without having to run anything past the director of NASA or the Secretary of Commerce. Since he is directly responsible to directing the production of GIS climate data, he is in fact the very first person one would contact about the reasoning behind the data production. Pielke can’t “answer those questions himself,” since they are aimed at the methodological thought processes of Schmidt himself. If Pielke did “answer” those questions himself, it would be putting words in Schmidt’s mouth. You would doubtless disapprove of that as well.

Richard – this is bull – and you know it!
To say that Gavin cannot answer these questions without losing his job is puerile nonsense!
And you accuse others who disagree with you of being “conspiracy theorists” !!!!

Doug UK
Knowing you are wrong, you deflect by adding a straw man.I do not and I have not accused people of being “conspiracy theorists”.
Your assertion is bull and – to quote an anonymous troll – you know it!
Richard

“Gary Pearse
May 19, 2015 at 4:56 pm”
The last time I heard the term “public servant” (Where I am from the term is usually civil rather than public servant) in a discussion with someone who actually was a Govn’t employee in New Zealand and was responsible for negotiating air routes for Air New Zealand said to me when that term came up “I don’t have be civil nor do I have to serve.”
Maybe it is a “civil servant”/Govn’t employee joke, but he seemed to be serious.

And doubling down with more alarmism claims of events that wouldn’t happen until well after his/their respective career is over. Since it would be almost infinitely easier to ACCURATELY model stock exchange forecasts than climate forecasts, you’d think the self aggrandizing alarmists would pursue the market money.

Some of this seems pretty arcane to me. How is quantitative skill measured? What is regional downscaling and how does it affect either behavior of skill of models? How does heat get into the deeper oceans without first showing up in the first 100 meters where the solar input is absorbed?
Schmidt could surely answer some of these questions. Even weaseled answers might help him recover a little from his childish gaffe of avoiding Spencer. He should give it a try.

Richard, I can see and appreciate your point. I truly can. But there’s another point here, and that’s what people can and will logically speculate (I won’t address what they can and will illogically and irrationally speculate) if silence is Gavin’s only response to the questions:
Did he not understand them and didn’t want to expose that?
Does he feel he’s too important to help “communicate” the proper information and education to others, including the public? (Or that Mr. Pielke Sr. isn’t important enough to respond to?)
Is he too busy? Because if he’s too busy to answer such important questions, then we shouldn’t see any blog articles or editorials or other “unimportant” responses from him anytime soon either.
Is he afraid to answer them? Job loss….reputation loss…screaming AGW harpies from the sky converging on him for giving skeptics evidence that the AGW argument is as flawed as they think it is? And if any of those are true-shouldn’t it be made public because he’s being manipulated by someone, and not the science?
A personal tragedy which has removed him from his office/duties at this particular time?
There is absolutely no logical, rational reason I can think of in which Gavin cannot ever answer those questions if he understands them, is duty bound to help educate and inform others regarding climate science, has a spare moment to do it, is not taking care of personal business, and has no reason to be afraid of doing so. Can you think of one?
If you can’t, then his silence indicates an illogical, irrational reaction on Gavin’s part, and brands him “a fool” anyway. And again, while you find that to be the “least dishonest” thing to do, it’s still dishonest. That you seem to be ok with dishonesty of any degree disappoints me more than however Gavin chooses to handle things.

Aphan
As you say, people will speculate but I choose to not do that.
I answer your post because you say to me

And again, while you find that to be the “least dishonest” thing to do, it’s still dishonest. That you seem to be ok with dishonesty of any degree disappoints me more than however Gavin chooses to handle things.

I am NOT “ok with dishonesty” and your suggestion that I am is unfounded abuse. Indeed, this conversation started because I pointed out that not answering was the “least dishonest” thing for Gavin Schmidt to do.
Please note that I was employed by the now defunct UK National Coal Board (NCB). My employment was by an agency (the NCB) owned by UK Government. Hence, I understand the situation of Gavin Schmidt who is employed by an agency (NASA GISS) owned by the US government.
When Gavin Schmidt accepted his job he agreed to assert the views of his employer, the US government. Providing honest answers to the questions of Roger Pielke Sr. would require him to oppose views of his employer, and that is why he would lose his job if he gave honest answers.Gavin Schmidt’s mistake was to agree to answer unseen questions from Roger Pielke Sr.. This had high risk that he would find himself confronted with questions he could not answer without opposing the views of his employer. And his failure to answer the questions would be dishonest because he had said he would answer them.
Gavin Schmidt’s foolish mistake places him in the position of losing his job or choosing to “eat the biscuit containing the lesser of two weavils”. And he has duty to his family who would suffer if he lost his job.
Richard

Richard S. Courtney, you prevaricate!
The bottom line (literally) is this: You clearly say that as the lesser of two ev1ls, Mr. Schmidt should l1e to keep his job (serving his duty to his family).
You left out, btw, his duty to his God.
**********************
On a pleasanter note: Glad you are feeling well enough to post! Hope the wedding was a delight for all.
Janice

Janice Moore
There is no prevarication from me. On the contrary, I raised the issue of dishonesty and I have explained how Gavin Schmidt has put himself into a situation where he has to decide the least wrong option.
I do not know Gavin Schmidt’s religion so I cannot comment on how how he sees his “duty to God”. But part of my “duty to God” is to accept the command “Judge not lest ye be judged”.
Thankyou for your concern about my health. Anyone who knows me can bear witness at my great improvement since the end of last year when the real problem with my heart was discovered and I started to obtain appropriate treatment for it. Now my heart is much better but (not right), the rate of progress of the emphysema of my lungs has reduced, and – I am told – the liver damage is repairing itself. I can now get upstairs unaided and on two legs!
As I was instructed to do, I complete all my affairs long before last Christmas but I made it to Christmas and my appropriate heart treatment then started. As you comment, I later made it to Matt’s wedding last month.
The wedding was a joyous occasion. Matt and Vicki are ‘leading lights’ of the large Methodist Church of St Marks (Matt is senior steward) so it was packed with happy, rejoicing people. Matt quietly heckled the presiding Minister from the start and until the Minister made two big mistakes (one of which was blatant). The Minister then appealed to the Congregation for understanding because he had never before conducted a wedding where he was heckled continuously by the groom. Everybody was rolling around with laughter. And the speeches were good at the reception. Yes, I am glad and thankful I made it there when less than a year ago nobody thought I would. And I am grateful for all the prayers of people who hoped I would make it to the wedding.
I am trying to contribute to thought and debate on WUWT, and next Sunday I am conducting worship at Frogpool in the morning and attending a combined Methodist and Salvation Army Service in Gwenapp Pit in the afternoon. This when only a few months ago nobody thought I would now be around.
Again, thankyou for your interest.
Richard

When Gavin Schmidt accepted his job he agreed to assert the views of his employer, the US government.
On government time, maybe. On his own time, not so much. We former colonials have peculiar traditions about such things. The old timers even amended our original constitution so the government couldn’t shut us up. And you have to admit, mere ignorance never yet kept an American quiet. : > )

If Gavin were a professional engineer he would have no choice but to speak the truth or resign. IMO, there is a problem with the lack of professional ethics in science. The attitude seems to be that it is OK to “partially” speak the truth, such as in testimony to Congress, but not give the “whole” truth. Frankly, it sickens me. The classic example is the statement of “It is the warmest year”, but always without the caution that there is solid evidence of warmer periods 1000 years ago, 1200, years ago, etc, etc. An engineers conclusion would be that the public is being lied to.

Maybe the ‘reason’ Gavin is unable to answer those questions, is that they weren’t posed on the ‘Real Climate’ blog.
Because there, he’s had plenty of time responding, sometimes in length, to all kinds of questions and even statements made on other blogs.
Maybe, this is a ‘can’t control the message’- or ‘can’t edit/delete the follow-up questions/comments’-issue!?
I would very much suspect this to be the case.

ECB that’s a good point. How many of these ‘climate professionals’ are members of professional organisations?
Can you imagine how the code of conduct for registered P.Cli members would read? The mind boggles if it were based on the conduct so far.
Above is a comment that says in 27 years no climate model has made an accurate prediction. Wow.
Imagine if a P.Eng designed bridges for 27 years, not one of which remained standing when used. Or perhaps a rocket engineer who in 27 years never managed to get a payload into orbit ‘because it is complicated’ and because they ‘omitted major variables’ for ‘lack of sufficient data.’
A typical climate model is a computer programme claiming a 100 year warranty that, within 10 years, fails 72 out of 73 times. We should launch a class action law suit to get our money back.

Above is a comment that says in 27 years no climate model has made an accurate prediction. Wow.

Yes, and it is worse than that.There has been no advance in the basic science for 36 years.
This is because there has been no improvement to the determination of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) which is normally expressed as temperature rise for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. ECS is the fundamental parameter whose value determines all calculations of anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW). And the poor determination of ECS has not been improved during the last 36 years.
The First Assessment Report (AR1) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate (IPCC) change was published in 1990 said of ECS

the models results do not justify altering the previously accepted range of 1.5 to 4.5°C

This is a very poor estimate: two values within the error range can differ by a factor of 3.
Improvement to the science of AGW requires improvement to the estimate of ECS.
But the most recent IPCC AR (i.e. AR5) which was published in 2013says ECS is

1.5 to 4.5°C

Climate science is not “settled”: it has been stuck for 36 years.
Richard

My infrared handbook gives the sea water absorption coefficient at around 470 nm; which is very close to the solar spectrum peak (extra-terrestrially and at the surface), as 1E-4 cm^-1
That means that the 1/e (37% remaining) depth is 100 metres. So 99% is absorbed in five times that or 500 meters.
This is the highest energy region of the solar spectrum, that is going that deep.
So 1% is surviving beyond 500 metres depth, and in the sensitivity to change that these scare mongers are quivering at, a 1% uncertainty is big news.
On the other hand, at three microns, beyond which only 2% of BB radiation from a 6,000 K source survives, at a spectral radiant emittance /absorptance is also about 2%, sea water has an absorption coefficient of about 8E3 cm^-1 so the 1/e depth is 1.25 microns, so only 1% of either incoming solar or downward atmospheric LWIR survives after 6.25 microns.
The rate of diffuse conduction of “heat” (noun) once that radiant energy is absorbed, is vastly slower than the radiation propagation, which is largely a beam penetration with clear skies.
At depths like 500 metres, the Temperature gradients would be microscopic, so there is very little Temperature gradient conduction to colder deeper waters, and just plain simple diffusion in a 4 pi steradian isotropic manner, must dominate.
So that heat is just as likely to diffuse upwards as downwards.
It is no wonder that nobody can follow that heat around; it mostly isn’t going anywhere, except by bulk transport of the water itself, in the various ocean currents.

Insolation energy is 90 percent absorbed in the top 10 meters. Just drop a photometer from the surface to a depth of 10 meters. There are very few places where divers can see much below 10 to 20 meters.

I agree with others that very little solar penetrates beyond 10 metres. The vast majority of solar is absorbed within just a few metres.
As regards DWLWIR, over 60% of this is absorbed within just 3 microns. Given the omni-drectional nature, it may be more like 75%. This means that if DWLWIR possesses sensible energy capable of performing sensible work in the environ in which it finds itself (ie., the top few microns of the ocean), it would drive copious amounts of evaporation unless it can be sequestered to depth thereby diluting the energy by volume, at a rate faster than the rate at which evaporation would be driven
The issue is what mechanisms can sequester this energy to depth. It does not appear that it can be by conduction since at the very top of the ocean (the top millimetres) the energy flux is upwards and as far as we know energy cannot flow/swim against the direction of the flux.
It is unlikely to be by ocean overturning which is a slow mechanical process and may also be diurnal.
It is unlikely to be by physical mixing caused by wind and waves since this too is a slow mechanical process and there are times and large areas where wind conditions/sea state is no more than BF3 (or below) where there is relatively little in the way of strong wind and wave action.
There is a problem with the concept that DWLWIR can in any meaningful way heat the oceans, and at most it merely goes to fuel evaporation (thereby cooling the very top of the ocean), but as I say from a theoretical point there is too much energy being absorbed in the top few microns and an expalanation is required as to how this energy can be quickly dissipated to volume.

Don’t hold your breath, awaiting sincere debate. The political “answer” was predetermined and therefore “the science is settled”. Many alarmists are but political puppets, and as puppets they do not dare pull back at the strings holding them up.
When it comes to pursuing the Truth, Alarmists resemble a dog pursuing its own tail. This is what they call, “Circling the wagons.”
I think there was an idea that the ends would justify the means, but what they have done is build a house upon the sands of falsehood. It cannot long stand.
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. is just making the obvious more obvious. I doubt he expects an answer.

The hypothesis that Gavin will not answer can never be proven, only falsified by Gavin answering the questions. Unless we lower our scientific standards and adopt the climate consensus epistemological view of what proof is, and consider our hypothesis proven until repeatedly disproven.
(Yes, my english is akward, I am a foreigner.)

To be fair, Gavin’s not going to be able to adequately answer those questions off the cuff. It could easily take him a month or more to get some of those answers. And for some, there are simply no answers for!

I think he is rightly worried that anything he says will be analysed to death. His answers need to be very carefully considered. Far too many people have blundered with stupid off the cuff remarks and live to regret it. Consider Trenberth’s “Travesty” remark and that wasn’t even a public statement!

To be fair, Gavin’s not going to be able to adequately answer those questions off the cuff.

To be fair, the odds of Gavin actually answering those questions from his cuff or any other part of his anatomy, while not at absolute zero, are giving a fair impression of minuscularity. The idea that he’s off composing his careful reply is … well … I’ll just say that it ranks very low on the credibility scale. I’m willing to be surprised, I’d be overjoyed if he answered … but I’m also a realist.
TimTheToolMan May 21, 2015 at 6:02 am

I think he is rightly worried that anything he says will be analysed to death.

As am I and as is anyone who posts on a scientific site, because, well … because science. So what? That’s what we do in science, we put our ideas out there for people whose specific purpose is to analyze them and if possible destroy, demolish, and discredit those ideas. Welcome to science.
I find it ironic that you’ve just repeated Phil Jones excuse for not giving Warrick his data … Phil said he was afraid that Warrick would try to find fault with it. Like I said … welcome to science, where part of a scientists job is to analyze and find fault with the claims of others.
The problem is that Gavin and most other mainstream climate scientists are too uncertain of their “facts” to expose them to the pitiless light of the agora, the open marketplace of scientific ideas.
But heck, Tim, if you want to believe Gav is off somewhere beavering away at the deeply considered and thoughtful answers he’ll someday give to Roger Pielke’s questions, don’t let me burst your bubble.
w.

Willis writes “I find it ironic that you’ve just repeated Phil Jones excuse for not giving Warrick his data”
You’ve picked a sentence (ie “I think he is rightly worried that anything he says will be analysed to death.”) and run with it. The sentence lives in the context of him answering carefully, not avoiding answering altogether.

Willis writes “The problem is that Gavin and most other mainstream climate scientists are too uncertain of their “facts” to expose them to the pitiless light of the agora, the open marketplace of scientific ideas.”
I wholeheartedly agree with that.
But I dont necessarily believe Gavin will answer the questions eventually. I also think it likely he’ll simply ignore them and eventually they’ll go away. I was simply making the point that a well considered answer was never going to come quickly.

Willis writes “The problem is that Gavin and most other mainstream climate scientists are too uncertain of their “facts” to expose them to the pitiless light of the agora, the open marketplace of scientific ideas.”
I wholeheartedly agree with that.
But I dont necessarily believe Gavin will answer the questions eventually. I also think it likely he’ll simply ignore them and eventually they’ll go away. I was simply making the point that a well considered answer was never going to come quickly.

He will not answer the questions for one of two reasons, he can’t or he won’t.
If he can’t, then he is not fit to discuss a subject that will cost humanity £/$trillions which could be better spent. If he won’t it is because AGW is discredited and he knows it. Either way I have to ask why is he in such a prestigious post?

These are the questions which elected officials should be compelling Schmidt to answer. He may not be under any legal obligation to take questions from the public, but he can be compelled to answer those questions by Congress.

Not really; the Constitution guarantees anyone the right to not answer questions. Or to put it differently it informs the government that they are not authorized to ask such questions. Now in this case, since Dr Schmidt is a government employee, living and spending on taxpayer’s money, then they do have a right to ask him to explain how he is using those taxpayer funds.

I was a civil servant for 8 or 9 years in the 1970s. We were instructed to answer questions from the public and one could get into some trouble by not being reasonably prompt. It was a different era though I guess. Also, there was a thing called a stick file where correspondence for the day was available for the higher uppers. I learned this when I got a nice memo – also on the stick file- complimenting me on a particular letter. No computer stuff then.

Chris
Theoretically, that is why they (elected officials) have qualified staff (or access to qualified staff). It’s lunacy to expect 535 (ok, 536, including POTUS) to be experts in atmospheric physics (or cancer cures, or landing men on the moon, or stem cell research). Ain’t gonna happen. Their job is to use experts to ensure appropriate questions are asked and answered. Lawyers (41% of US congress) do this every day.
Admittedly, political biases easily cause you to get tied up in your underwear…

“Eighty years ago this month, pioneering rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard and staff fired a liquid-fueled rocket to a record altitude of 7,500 feet above ground level.” ***
“… in 1919, he published his now-famous scientific treatise entitled A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. In that paper, the press glommed on to Goddard’s passing mention that a multi-staged rocket could conceivably fly all the way to the Moon.” ***
“The New York Times was especially derogatory in its estimation of Goddard’s ideas and accused him of junk science. *** Even the United States government largely ignored Goddard. The negative treatment to which Goddard was subjected profoundly affected the American rocket scientist. So much so that he spent the remainder of his life completely alienated from the scorning dolts of both media and government.” ***
“… 24 years after his passing. … A terse statement in the New York Times corrected a long-standing injustice. It read: ‘Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century, and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.'”
Source: http://blog.seattlepi.com/americanaerospace/2015/05/18/the-original-rocket-man-3/
*********************************************************
@ NASA: Either re-name your space institute, or replace the director. A small-minded, unprincipled, coward like Schmidt is not worthy of that honor (nor is he, apparently, even competent). Signed: A U.S. Taxpayer Tired of Waste in Government.

Even much later, I had a high-school ‘science’ teacher who claimed that a rocket could not fly in space “because it has nothing to push against.” I knew better, because of the Third Law, and having long been a fan of Willy Ley’s The Conquest of Space, (with the famous Chesley Bonestell illustrations). Of course the teacher, a Mr. Cooper, had been hastily recruited to fill in for the real science teacher; his previous job had been vice-principal and coach of the girls’ softball team at a school in West Virginia.
Yes, of course it is a disgrace that Dr. Schmidt is heading the Institute named after Robert H. Goddard, and even more scandalous that this Institute has been co-opted in the service of The Great Climate Hoax since the 1980s.
/Mr Lynn

Josh should draw a rat persona of Gavin scurrying away down the safe tunnels of academic tenure away from the light of science and reason.
The guy is simply a coward. Period.
And very well paid one using your tax dollars. Demand more from your government!

Dr. Gavin Schmidt is a mathematician, not a physicist, not a geophysicist, not an atmospheric physicist, not an ocean physicist, not a planetary physicist, not a geochemist, not an atmospheric chemist, not an ocean chemist, not a biologist–just a mathematician, a specialist in numerical analysis. This is why his GCMs are unphysical Mickey Mouse cartoons. This is why they don’t work.

Gus
That is very interesting. Not to take shots at Federal employees, but I wonder how many others in all the agencies are academically not qualified for their jobs. Probably more than we want to know.

My apologies to Joseph Ratliff and others.
It just occurred to me, that Anthony might have given his blessing to the re-blogging of WUWT proprietary stuff.
Were it me, I would just wave the WUWT flag at my site (I don’t have one), and say go to WUWT.
No foul; play on.

Plagiarism in a good way. I notice that more commenters are referring readers to WUWT within the comments section of typical MSM CAGW press releases. Also that less Alarmists attempt to knock or ridicule WUWT as a bad source of climate information. I guess this is because of the tremendous reach WUWT now has on the global stage as a reputable source of climate information. Cheers to Anthony and all the people who come here regularly to read and comment.

The important thing to remember with Gavin is that he isn’t a climatologist he isn’t even a real scientist. He is a mathematician and there is no evidence that he is a very good one. He went from Oxford a top 5 mathematics department undergrad to London University post grad which isn’t even top 30. That is a huge step down and tells us that his professors were not impressed with him. That he graduated with honors doesn’t really mean anything anymore.
Gavin is a pretend scientist he doesn’t have the physics background to argue with real experts. That is why he refuses to debate. Lindzen mopped the floor with him so easily because once you get past the ‘I’m a NASA scientist’ facade he really doesn’t have the qualifications, education, or god given intelligence.

I don’t think you need to be one of the world’s greatest mathematicians to work on climate science. Or even a particularly good mathematician, for that matter. The math (outside possibly flawed statistical analysis) isn’t driving the debate. The ideas and beliefs of the participants, far more than skill at math or science, determine where one stands.
I trust that Dr. Schmidt is more than sufficiently intelligent to manage GISS and conduct competent science along the way. Whether he does either in the manner most of us would prefer does not depend on his post grad university.

opluso says:I trust that Dr. Schmidt is more than sufficiently intelligent to manage GISS and conduct competent science along the way.
You are too trusting. Gavin Schmidt may be intelligent. But he tucks tail and runs away from debating skeptical scientists. That is a fact.
If Schmidt really believed in what he’s trying to sell, he would step up and debate. The fact that he is afraid to debate (like the rest of the alarmist scientists) should tell any unbiased observer all they need to know.

By whom ?
Mathematics isn’t ANY kind of “Science”. it is purely a set of completely fictional tools. We made it all up in our heads; and there is not even one single item or object that is DEFINED in ANY branch of mathematics, that even exists anywhere in the real physical universe; not anything.
And as for being exact. It isn’t always. There are many ordinary “sums” which one can add up and get ANY answer that you want. Only certain sums can have a definite exact answer.
And what did Gödel tell us in his undecidability principle ??

Ha-Ha, George, it’s not the ‘undecidability’ principle! Although I suppose you could call it that.
Gödel said:That which is true is provable.
That which is not provable is false.
All unprovable assertions are self-contradictory.
He called it his “Incompleteness” Theorem. And yes, it applies to the “dangerous man-made catastrophic runaway global warming conjecture/scare/assertion/head fake.” ☺

…correction: All axiomatic systems that are powerful enough to enumerate the natural numbers are either incomplete or contradictory. This correction is important because Euclidian geometry is complete and not contradictory; while being an axiomatic system, it is not powerful enough to enumerate the natural numbers.

Matt:
Please reread my comment. Mathematical prowess is not the root of the problem in climate science.
Therefore, I believe that criticism of Dr. Schmidt’s post-grad work is a non sequitur in the context of his positions on climate change.

Regarding the exactness of math I have a question which my math skills can’t solve. The ration of volume to surface area should explain heat loss from solid bodies yet the ratio changes when you change units ie inches vs feet. Can anyone explain?
Max

Tom T — you (as you well knew, I realize, just posting this for others less well-informed) are correct.
Mathematics is not a “science.”Science:The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/science

Climate Science:
The intellectual and practical activity of ignoring the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment and fiddling around with computer data.

Well this “mathematics” discussion is a distinction without a difference; just try doing science without it. It’s like music without notes.
In fact, this thread’s enthusiasm to discredit Schmidt (which, by the way, he’s already accomplished all by himself) because he’s a mathematician resembles something recently fallen from the digestive tract of a large herbivore.

Tom T May 19, 2015 at 10:45 am
The important thing to remember with Gavin is that he isn’t a climatologist he isn’t even a real scientist. He is a mathematician and there is no evidence that he is a very good one. He went from Oxford a top 5 mathematics department undergrad to London UNIVERSITY post grad which isn’t even top 30. That is a huge step down and tells us that his professors were not impressed with him.
I think you’re a bit off the mark with your assessment of University College London, last list I saw had them ranked 20th in the world and 4th in Europe, most cited university in Europe from 1999-2009, not to mention 32 Nobel laureates and three Fields medallists (which would suggest a fairly good math dept).

It’s a good school but it’s not in the Oxford academic trajectory. Top students at Oxford do not go to London. It’s a step down. Actually 2 to 3 steps down.
You can get a very good gage on someone’s academic performance by their academic trajectory. I the age of grade inflation it’s the best tool we have. It tells you how impressed the professor’s were with their performance.

If any of thiese guys were any good at maths, they would never seek to fit a straight line linear trend line to the land based thermometer record.
Indeed, if they were any good at maths, they would acknowledge the wide error bounds that all the data sets are subject to and that most are not fit for purpose such that it is impossible to eek out the signal (if any) to CO2 from the temperature data sets.
That is just basic.

Gents, his career trajectory is perhaps more important a measure. CAGW science has basically one highly fortified formula which they refuse to alter it in any way. It is a linear science (this is probably what is wrong with it). Willis Eschenbach simplified it even more for them in one of his articles here at WUWT which was responded to with outrage. I believe it was a measure of climate sensitivity. Surely y=ax+b is taught just as well at UC London as it is at Oxford.

Tom T May 19, 2015 at 12:30 pm
It’s a good school but it’s not in the Oxford academic trajectory. Top students at Oxford do not go to London. It’s a step down. Actually 2 to 3 steps down.
You can get a very good gage on someone’s academic performance by their academic trajectory.
I disagree, at the post grad level it’s more about the subject you’re interested in and who your advisor is that’s important, not the departmentsturgishooper May 19, 2015 at 12:43 pm
Imperial College London is tied at Number 12, however. To move up from undergrad at Oxford, Gav would have had to go to Cambridge, MIT, Harvard or Berkeley. Numbers six to eight, ie Princeton, UCLA or Stanford, might have been considered a sideways move, but still not overwhelming.
Case in point, Bhargava (Fields medal, 2014) graduated from Harvard but did his PhD at Princeton with Andrew Wiles, I’d hardly share your assessment of such a move.

Arguing between Harvard and Princeton is splitting hairs.
In thd case of Gavin going from Oxford to UCL is a clear cut downward academic trajectory and says s lot about what Gavin’s professors thought of his skill as a mathematician.

Phil,
I agree that among the top ten or so, it is a case of splitting hairs. But from a top five to a below top 50 math department is significant.
The fact is however that Harvard is rated a little higher than Princeton, which is why I called the move sideways, not really downward.

Everybody put there “Wayback Helmets” on.
I seem to recall that there were a number of people that suggested that Gavin would be much more open and forward about this kind of stuff back when climate activist Hansen retired.
Same ol’ Same ol’

It is hard to respond to these questions, when you normally just need to say “it is worse than we thaught”. And the average of models must be right, even if no single model or run will give anything like our climate.

With all due respect to Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., those are not difficult questions for such an eminent scientist such as Gavin Schmidt.Q: How do you respond to this critique of climate models with respect to the GISS model?
A: All models are wrong but some are useful.Q: What is the GISS update to this summary including the current estimates for the imbalance?
A: 0.6 +/- 17Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting average observed regional climate statistics?
Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting CHANGES in observed regional climate statistics?
Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting observed regional extreme weather statistics?
Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting CHANGES in observed regional extreme weather statistics?
Q: Can regional dynamic and/or statistical downscaling be used to increase the prediction (projection) skill beyond that of available by interpolation to finer scales directly from the multi-decadal global climate models predictions?
A: See #1Q: Since it is claimed that a large fraction of the heat from human input of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has been going into the deeper ocean over the last 10-15 years (as an attempt to explain the “hiatus”), why is the global average surface temperature trend still used as the primary metric to diagnose global warming?
A: It’s not; we don’t need no stinking metrics!Q: What is the relative role of land use/land cover change relative as well as added aerosols with respect to added CO2 and other greenhouse gases in affecting local and regional climate and changes in regional climate statistics?
A: Whatever we need it to be to make our models work and keep the meme alive.Q: Please provide your best estimate for the terms.
A: Refuse to read or respond to anything from JC.Q: What is your conclusion on the role of changes in extreme weather as they affect society during the last several decades?
A: The role of all weather is to aid in keeping the meme alive through media hype and misperception.
I would like for him (Gavin) to answer questions even his chauffeur should be able to answer. (Apologies to Jerry Clower)
What in your opinion is humanity good at?
A) Altruistic cooperation and sacrifice for the common good.
B) Adherence to authorities dictates for our own good such as prohibition.
C) Exploiting resources for our benefit, adapting to our environment, adapting our environment, and technological advancement.
D) Peaceful coexistence and living low environmental impact lifestyles.
Which strategy for combating climate change (if its a problem) best matches humanity’s strengths?
A) Voluntary global agreements limiting the use of the cheapest energy source available.
B) Mandatory global limitations on the use of the cheapest energy source available.
C) Global education on peaceful coexistence and low environmental impact living.
D) Improving infrastructural and environmental circumstances at the local and regional level while researching and developing a next generation energy source.
What ended the Stone Age?
A) Stone shortage.
B) Development of bronze for tool making, obsoleting stone tools.
C) Global moratorium on stone mutilation.
D) Stones uprising.
What in your opinion will end the fossil fuel age?
A) Thermonuclear war.
B) Fossil fuel shortage.
C) Development of a next generation energy source(s), obsoleting fossil fuels.
D) Edicts from alien overlords our wise leaders based on guidance from infallible experts.
E) Unprecedented global cooperation to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

Evaluating climate models is something of a no-win proposition in that they never can be “right” because they don’t model the actual climate. They never get the same answer twice since climate is chaotic- even if the model’s start point is programmed to 20 decimals at some point they will exhibit chaotic behavior. The fact that they all have to use numerical analysis the computers cannot reproduce an analog regime accurately enough and they cannot solve many equations accurately- the finite representation of the calculations results in a residual error, which in a system of non-linear partial derivatives always generates accumulating errors.
I liken it, in a way, to judging figure skating- none of the judges have exactly the same preferences, none can always give the exact same score for an error, and they all have some biases they may not even know. So different groups of judges will give the same performance different scores. All they can hope for is that each of the contestants makes one or more obvious mistakes so the judges can judge based on major errors and not have to deal with fine nuances.
And those are the problems with climate models. They can’t show fine, but very real nuances such as cloud cover, or localized weather, they can’t make consistent runs, they can’t show if they’ve run themselves off the rails so to speak.
Aircraft engineers face many of the same problems on a smaller, simpler scale so while they cannot exactly calculate a predicted performance through a combination of “close enough” fluid dynamics models, experience, and practical judgement they can get very close and make useful predictions of a planned aircraft’s performance. But aircraft engineers have a hundred years of experience and probably millions of well publicized mistakes to inform their newest designs.

It has to be extremely hard for these people to see their world crumbling before their eyes.
As the knowledge becomes better on how all of the climate drivers fit together (mostly through WUWT it seems) and the future actually doesn’t seem so dire, panic has to be setting in. If they really are smart they have to see the current climate cycle isn’t moving in their direction, and quite possibly will be moving the other way at a faster pace.
Almost every prediction they have made has been false: sea ice falling, global temperatures rising, extreme weather events increasing, snow never falling in England, sea levels rising faster…. And after this year’s el Niño there will be the inevitable central Pacific cooling and if global temps don’t respond to the current el Niño and rise a little, there could be quite possibly a crash to under the mean in a few years.
Sooner or later the facts always catch up to the myths, unless of course, you are in a George Orwell novel.

The poor dude is a math junkie, not a climate specialist. The fella is scared people will find out that he has no training in the field. Does he have any physics background at all, any experimmental background?

I believe Gavin is exhibiting “self preservation bias”.
I also suspect,,,,,, the questions are flowing in from congress on the justification for the adjustments to the temp records. I would love to see a congressional hearing on that in the near term. The dancing from such would make “Dancing with the Stars” look like amateur hour.
Popcorn futures will skyrocket…..

Gavin is following the same set of instructions as the EPA Director, and that is to stick with the policy marching orders no matter what truth or science process lies just inches off the path. That is what separates it from anything of science.

There’s nothing wrong with Dr. Gavin Schmidt’s educational background.https://www.ucl.ac.uk/research/rae-2008/21
Educationally he’s as qualified as anyone on either side of this “debate”.
It doesn’t matter what his qualifications are, how high his IQ is, or our popular his ideas are; what matters is whether A) tests of his hypothesis confirm or refute it; B) whether underlying assumptions are valid; and C) whether reasonable conclusions are drawn from it.
For example, even if CAGW was slam dunk established it is not an automatically reasonable conclusion that [insert any emission limiting strategy here] will actually work.

@ Anyone Still Wanting to (eyeroll) Defend Schmidt’s Refusal to Answer EASY Questions:Schmidt has opened the door to such questions as Dr. Pielke’s by asserting his competence to answer them (and, lol, in the course of it, confirming his IN-competence by his often ridiculously inaccurate answers) by making such public statements as these:
April, 2015
“Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, spoke last week at the Seventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts and Responses held in Vancouver. Here is an edited version of an interview he gave to The Sun:
Q: Is it too late to reverse the effects of climate change and global warming?
A: The time scales in the ocean, in the land and in the ice mean that we are not going to see a reversal of global warming for centuries. …
{LOL — laughing because this is SOOO ignorant! 1) overall, earth has been cooling for centuries; 2) recently, the temp. warming has stopped}
***
A. We have to have a price on carbon because right now it’s still free to put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So if you put a price on carbon that is commensurate with the damage that carbon-dioxide emissions cause, then people will be smarter. … and moving away from oil for transportation. *** ”
Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Global+warming+here+stay+says+NASA+scientist+with+video/10978871/story.html
*******************************
NASA Director simply = P.R. guy for Big Wind (and Tiny-but-Tenacious Solar).
Lying to put bread on the table, poor, widdo, fella.
Disgusting.

And if CO2 does no harm, it should have no price.
The jury is out on whether it does any harm, but from the way that the planet is greening, we can already see that it does a lot of good.
If it does good, should a reward be paid to those who produce carbon?
There is a new tax for the government to take from its people and give to the carbon producers.
Problem it redistributes weath in the developed world from poor to rich (as wanted by those who govern us) but does not redistribute wealth to the developing world.

I think the larger question beyond Gavin Schmidt’s competence in his job is why NASA is spending our thinly-stretched taxpayer dollars to run a research unit in one of the most expensive places in the country – New York City! It makes NO sense except to justify bankrolling Columbia University faculty and staff to the tune of millions of dollars per year.
Then there is related question – why are we funding yet ANOTHER climate modeling group in the U.S. government when we already have a center of excellence at NCAR (and similar at NOAA)? The GISS Model E is a crappy code which is STILL poorly documented (despite recent “updates”) and nowhere near as good as NCAR’s CESM. Why do we pay two groups to do the SAME modeling? Yet another waste of taxpayer dollars…

GOP members of Congress are asking some of the same questions.
Since GISS has become such a BS mill, best just to shut it down. Or at the very least take away its climate modeling brief and move it out of NYC.

4 letters NASA.
NASA carries more clout than any other acronym with the general public when it comes to science.
The NASA brand is critical for climate alarmists and they will fight tooth and nail to keep from losing it.
No one give ls a damn about NOAA or NCAR.

“The GISS Model E is a crappy code which is STILL poorly documented (despite recent “updates”) and nowhere near as good as NCAR’s CESM. ”
There’s a good climate model? Did it get something right? When does it say will Earth become a Venus-like inferno?

The AGW activists do NOT want dialogue.
They want & need only preachers, priests, and evangelizers.
Gavin Schmidt only wants to “inform” the world with his opinion. He wants to preach from on-high, the doctrine of global warming from the religion of the Green God. He is a priest, plain and simple.
The perfect scenario, which should never be forgotten, was him getting up and leaving John Stossel’s set and Dr Spencer coming in and sitting down, with a grin as wide as he could fit on his face. Somebody who knows how, should make an infinite loop of that moment on youtube.
It is the most absolutely anti-science & obstinate, act of fear and arrogance that I have ever seen.
It should be carved into the marble frieze above the columns of the entrance to the Cathedral to Gaia.

Like most progressivism, the Warmists follow to a tee the characteristics of Groupthink.
Groupthink is often characterised by:
■A tendency to examine too few alternatives;
■A lack of critical assessment of each other’s ideas;
■A high degree of selectivity in information gathering;
■A lack of contingency plans;
■Poor decisions are often rationalised;
■The group has an illusion of invulnerability and shared morality;
■True feelings and beliefs are suppressed;
■An illusion of unanimity is maintained;
■ Mind guards (essentially information sentinels) may be appointed to protect the group from negative information.

Here is my most recent e-mail to Gavin Schmidt (on April 22nd) which has remained unanswered. He had been replying earlier and gradually moved from answering some of the questions to going silent. The origin of these question goes back to a set of tweets on his site Gavin Schmidt@ClimateOfGavin.
“Gavin. I am asking for your views on several subjects. If I were a reporter for the Economist or other major publication , would you still relegate my queries to such a low priority? Or if you were asked these questions as part of testimony at a House or Senate committee?
You are not just a scientific colleague but have a senior federal government position. This does obligate you to respond even if you delegate to your staff.
You asked for patience. Okay – please tell me when you will be able to answer the questions. At some point, we will just post the questions to you. I prefer, however, a constructive discussion between us which can than be posted.
Roger Sr”
I have posted on WUWT since it has become clear these questions are too inconvenient for him to address (or delegate to his staff). In years past, colleagues would be glad to engage in such constructive discussion.
P.S. Please focus on the science in your comments, not on his behavior.

I have posted on WUWT since it has become clear these questions are too inconvenient for him to address (or delegate to his staff).
I’m curious how you might think this post on WUWT will facilitate a meaningful conversation. It seems odd to suppose that publicly “calling out” a colleague will do anything but reinforce partisan behaviors. One might be excused for thinking this is simply theater.

Perhaps it’s an attempt to shame him publicly to reply. In fact, these questions are not that controversial nor difficult. I too would like to know what the latest ocean heat estimates are in the models.

Well, this is one U. S. taxpayer (I pay Mr. Schmidt’s salary) who was glad to have such malfeasance (yes, “mal,” for it is clearly intentional and not mere negligence) exposed.
Mr. M0sher, Mr. Schmidt DOES work for Mr. Pielke.
Questions testing his basic competence for his job should be answered.

If the debate is actually over, then all relevant answers should already be known, which means there should be no reason for them to be afraid to answer questions. They should be happy to educate us, unless they’re afraid their answers will reveal the truth, that no debate was ever held, and that they are only pretending to know the answers.

Gavin was Dr Doom hand-picked successor, has he is know to to have the ‘right views’ , while like others in ‘the Team’ if he where not on the CAGW bandwagon it would be hard to see him getting any serious job in science, given his wholesale rejection of good scientific pratice .
So it looks like a dog , walks like a dog and barks like a dog , then a dog is what get and why would you expect anything else .

Hey, hey, hey! #(:))
Heeeeere’s Gav….. er…. Tommy Flanaygan (okay, okay, he’s TRYING)!
He got help!
(yeah, a little relapse here and there, but he is on the mend — now in recovery!! Clean and honest for…. (look at watch)…. 10 minutes, now!)
Hopefully, all his L.A. (Liars Anonymous) friends will give him the courage to appear on WUWT!

I find it really irritating to read sentences like the following:
“Gavin decided to hide offstage while Dr. Spencer had finished his interview with John Stossel, rather than be subject to some tough questions Dr. Spencer might have posed in a debate with him on live TV. Gavin knew he’d lose, so he acted like a child on national TV and hid from Dr. Spencer offstage.”
Either everyone who holds a PhD ought to be called “Doctor”, or else everyone ought to be referred to by their given names.
Please just be consistent, otherwise it looks like you’re playing favourites.

I disagree. Someone who has demonstrated that they are not worthy of the respect given to a professional, due to their childish behavior, should not be referred to with a meaningless (in their case) honorific.

In summary, the answer to all your questions is that the human race is doomed by inevitable climate catastrophe. You are trying to nitpick. The science is settled. It is chaos that prevents the truth to be seen. I am the eggman coo-coo-cajoo.

Q#1: Since the GCMs “broadly capture the correct proportion”, and they are “global” climate models, I don’t see where the problem is. Don’t use tools for purposes they were not intended.
Q#3: Don’t use tools …
Q#4: Oh, it sound like regional downscaling is being proposed as an adapter attached to the GCM tool, to enable the GCM’s to be used for regional predictions, and you want to know if that will work. Sounds like a good idea, try it out and let us know how it works.
Q#5: It’s interesting, when El Nino heat washes up on Andean shores, I always see a tongue of warm water pushed downwards into the deeper ocean. Since the world temperature maps also show warm water pushed against African shores, is this a significant source of deep-ocean heat sequester? Do the math.
Q#6: Hey, you want our GCM’s to now accurately model aerosols and regional land use/land cover changes, first send more money. Lots of money. We’ll get back to you.
Q#7: Our GCM code is available. Run it yourself, or talk to my boss. Maybe NASA will re-prioritize my research goals.
Shorter Gavin: I don’t punch down. Anything regional is downpunching. Good luck with your regional climate modeling research.

2009: Gavin S. predicts a cooling trend “will be never talked about again”
“The current El Nino is forecast to get stronger, probably pushing global temperatures even higher next year, scientists say. NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt predicts 2010 may break a record, so a cooling trend “will be never talked about again.”https://twitter.com/tan123/status/572001084631203840

there must also be included the general question ( not in this particular RFC ).
If out of nothing comes something ( it just does ) where did emotional feeling come from ?
Somebody who considers such a ridiculous question valid might consider all is not what it might appear even after extensive scrutiny. The Church might step in saying ” yes, yes, this is what we have been trying to say. All of us have seen the life behind everything, seen an all encompassing intelligence powering all in life ”
Such a person might think this intelligence would laugh off attempts to alter the equilibrium it desires, here.
just saying, like.

Dr. Pielke,
Your R-321 paper (2007 JGR) deserves the highest praise, wide readership and multiple citations.http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-321.pdf
No other single publication has had greater influence on my scientific understanding of “climate change”
Thank you.
BTW, I also “discovered” the planetary surface boundry later in 1984 as a grad student looking at CO2 flux rates of photosynthesizing C4 plant leaves. I had no understanding that atmospheric CO2 could change so radically near the surface on a daily or hourly rate. Native soils can be powerful sources of CO2.

Rapidly growing young wheat plants will rapidly clear the air column above them of CO2, even at today’s elevated levels. The drawdown of CO2 by vegetation might be one reason why the gas is relatively “well mixed”, as it flows to areas recently devoid of it. Of course it stays aloft longer than water vapor anyway, which condenses more readily at ambient temperatures on earth.

Two big questions alarmists will not answer:
1) How much Co2 can the whole ocean absorb?
2) How much heat can the whole ocean absorb?
The correct answer to #1 is: “The deep oceans have 37,000 PgC of carbon. If the atmosphere goes to 560ppm, then by Henry’s law, the deep oceans will be able to absorb, even with some rise in temperature, and applying the Revelle ratio (to account for balance of Co2 and carbonate) an additional 2856 PgC. Currently, the oceans are absorbing 2.5PgC a year, so this is slow process, but it means that eventually, most of the 10 PgC that we emit will get pulled into the oceans.”
For #2: “The heat capacity of the ocean is about 50 times that of the atmosphere. The last 20 years of ocean heat content addition added a mere 0.03C on average to the ocean temperatures. As surface temperatures rise, the oceans have a moderating impact on further rises, and will do so in cyclical ways.”
Once you own up to the deep ocean taking up heat, and you own up to the massive heat capacity of the deep ocean, being on average a few km deep, even a mathematician like Gavin can see it leads to long lead times and lower warming trends. When you add to that the fact that oceans are taking up 2.5 PgC of carbon per year, and growing as the Co2 ppm count goes up, you have to conclude that oceans provide a significant moderating effect on CO2 addition and on temperature. The oceans are one more reasons why climate change is more moderate than alarmists claim.

hello, for somebody like me who is not used to envisioning really big numbers is it possible to redraw that statement with sort sort of physical reference ?
does one PgC means 1 billion tonne ?
that is a really big number to try to evaluate.
how much space would something like that have to have ?

1 Seawater dissolved inorganic carbon is near 2200 micromolar. CO2 in air is 400 micromolar. Neither is saturated. Neither is in passive equilibrium. The biological component to the global biogeochemical carbon cycle has be operating for about a billion years. Biology is notorious for it’s non-linear properties.
2 The total heat capacity of the global ocean is 1000 times that of the global atmosphere. This has been calculated many times from many sources. I’ve checked that number years ago and found the same.
At the ocean-atmosphere interface, seawater has a density 800 times air. Seawater has a specific heat capacity 4 times air. So the ocean has 3200 times the heat capacity of the air in contact with the surface.
For example, one kilojoule of energy absorbed by air at the surface will result in a one degree temperature increase. One kilojoule of energy absorbed by the ocean just below that air will increase the seawater temperature by 1/3200 of one degree. BTW, the “kelvin” is the current name for what is commonly called the “degree” of the Celsius scale according to SI.

I strongly suspect that future history researchers will date the changeover in the climate catastrophe conflict from a situation where the the skeptics were the ones under constant attack and on the defensive to the Climate Catastrophists being the ones under attack and on the increasingly desperate defensive sometime from about late 2013 to through 2014.

Gavin is behind the wheel of a coach running down a mountain road, and the brakes have gone.
The passengers are frantic and he shouts ‘don’t worry, its going to be ok’
One of his passengers is a driver and asks – ‘exactly HOW is this going to be ok ?’
no answer
To be fair – Gavin’s probably a bit preoccupied right now

Chris Schoneveld
May 19, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Unfortunately, the pause is about to end with a potentially strong El Nino looming.
========================
I have a serious question for you, no disrespect intended. If, as you say the projected El Nino (although we have been in El Nino conditions for about 6 months as it is) ‘ends’ the ‘hiatus’ (I assume by that you mean that ‘Global Average Temps’ are going to rise to a level that wipes out the current no increase trend), then are you saying that El Nino is primarily caused by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere? It seems to me that, unless you contend exactly that, any increase in global average temperature attributed to El Nino conditions will not offer any support to the current contention (or ‘settled science’ if you will) that CO2 is a ‘thermostat’ that controls global temperatures. So what if El Nino raises temps? It isn’t CO2 that is causing it, is it.

Today (May 19, 2015) Gavin Schmidt tweeted
“If you’d like to have my opinion on anything work-related tho, try asking nicely & being patient (depending on how involved the Q is)”
I cannot let this misconception on patience and courtesy go unaddressed. I have presented below the e-mail exchange over the last more than half a year with Gavin on this. As you will see, I have asked “nicely”.
My e-mail September 2 2014 9/2/14
Gavin
Will you be replying to my requests on Twitter?
These are:
1. Jim Hansen wrote
“Our simulated 1993-2003 heat storage rate was 0.6 W/m2
in the upper 750 m of the ocean.”
What was it 2003-2014 in the GISS model?
2. How do you define “global warming”?
I was motivated on these questions as Judy wrote on her weblog that you seem open to such exchange of perspectives. Indeed, as Director of GISS, this would seem to be an appropriate aspect of your job. If I do not ask, others certainly will.
Sincerely
Roger
Gavin’s Reply September 2 2014
Roger, Thank you for your questions. Unfortunately, the pressures on my time have increased substantially in recent months, and that means that computing model diagnostics to order is a slightly lower priority than other tasks. I have requested the data that were shown in Miller et al (2014 – which I recommend you read), but when this will arrive, and when I will have time to do this processing, is unknown. If you are in a rush I suggest you access the CMIP5 database directly. Note that there is an ensemble of 36 simulations that need to be processed to answer your question.
Cheers,
Gavin
My Response September 2 2014
Gavin. Thank you for the reply. There is no rush for the update. It is just that Jim outlined the issue so clearly, an update would be really valuable for everyone.
On your definition of global warming, I really would like to see where you are on this. I am hoping this is one issue you and I are now on the same page with.
I think we also have the same conclusion on the lack of added skill using statistical and dynamic downscaling of multi-decadal climate projections.
Regards
Roger
March 18th 2015 I sent Gavin the list of questions that are posted on WUWT.
Gavin’s Response March 18 2015
Roger, thanks. I’ll answer what it makes sense to answer, but I am not the spokesperson for the entire community and for things I don’t work on directly, you are as capable as finding references as I. I will of course have some questions for you and I’ll expect a similar level of response.
Gavin
My Response
Gavin
Thank you for the prompt response, A two way Q&A is a good idea.
While you are not a spokesman, you are a Director of an
internationally well respected institute that is a leader in climate
science. It certainly would be fine for you to assign to those in GISS
if you feel the specific question is outside your area of expertise.
This would be appropriate. But answering them does seem to be in your
role as Director.
I provided references only to frame the questions. Referring me to
references as the answer itself (i.e. telling me to just go find it
there) is not effective at constructive discussion.
As I wrote, this exchange between you and I could start to build
bridges among others in this very polarized subject.
Follow up to Gavin April 1 2015
Hi Gavin
Please give us an update on our Q&A.
Roger Sr.
Gavin’s Response April 1 2015
haven’t had a chance to get to it. sorry.
My Response
Thanks for letting us know. We look forward to your response when you can.
Roger
My Follow up on April 18 2015
Hi Gavin
Are you going to answer the questions I presented? One at a time would be fine. Judy will post and a constructive open discussion can then occur.
Roger Sr
My Second Follow up April 21 2015
Gavin. Are you going to reply at all? I know you are busy but my request for you to answer the questions I asked is quite reasonable.
Soon we will just post the questions to you and let you decide if you want to engage in that forum. I anticipate at some point, in your position as Director of GISS, you will need to answer them.
Roger Sr
Gavin’s Response April 22 2015
Roger, I really have no idea why you think I’m somehow obliged as a function of my job to do work for you. This is a very odd attitude to have. I said I was busy, and I am. I will try and get around to discussing issues that appear interesting to me, when I get a chance. In the meantime, have patience.
gavin
My Follow Up April 22 2015
Gavin. I am asking for your views on several subjects. If I were a reporter for the Economist or other major publication , would you still relegate my queries to such a low priority? Or if you were asked these questions as part of testimony at a House or Senate committee?
You are not just a scientific colleague but have a senior federal government position. This does obligate you to respond even if you delegate to your staff.
You asked for patience. Okay – please tell me when you will be able to answer the questions. At some point, we will just post the questions to you. I prefer, however, a constructive discussion between us which can than be posted.
My Second Follow Up May 13 2015
Gavin. Are you ever going to respond to my questions? Just give me a straight answer either way. If you are going to answer, when could I expect them?
Roger Sr
There was no further e-mails from Gavin

Mr. Schmidt has proven his incompetence out of his own mouth above.
If he has to “work” for months at coming up with those answers, i.e., if he cannot discover those answers within one month, then:
1. He has no idea how to schedule/delegate work to staff; and or
2. He is abysmally ignorant (as to some of the Q’s –In several cases, you are simply asking him to prove what he has already claimed he knows) of:
a. what he should know or (easily be able to discover) to be qualified for his position;
and
b. of what he should know per his publicly asserted level of competence (Schmidt is regularly making assertions with a high level of confidence which assume knowledge which would answer several of your questions).
*****************************
Nothing you can do but what you have done. If it were a court case, you could file a Motion to Compel and get a judge to help you (motivation: costs of motion and “terms”…. ultimately, pay, or go to jail ….).
So much for professional courtesy, huh?GOOD FOR YOU, DR. PIELKE, TO TRY SO HARD!

Thanks for posting this Dr Pielke. The dismissive tone of Schmidt’s responses is revealing. He and his “community” seem to have enfolded themselves into a cocoon. They reveal themselves when communicating their message to the social media (Tweets) or as MSM press releases. And do so only because these communication methods restrict any proper dialogue. They are likened to the “ship of fools” who were determined to go and trap themselves within folds of Antartica ice.

The 36 simulations do not, actually, form an ensemble. Not even in climate science:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_ensemble
Two or more different models do not constitute a statistical ensemble of any sort whose behavior can be expected to converge in a sane way to something in a meaningful relationship to the target. A grand ensemble in climate statistics involves two or more levels of ensemble averaging in a single model. The “Multi-model Ensemble” (MME) to which Gavin refers is not a statistical ensemble of any sensible sort, by which I mean specifically one cannot expect the superaverages over the grand ensemble averages or perturbed parameter ensemble averages of many models to have any meaningful relation to the quantities they are supposed to represent.
Worse, the members of the MME are not independent! Seven of the 36 are contributed by NASA GISS, for example, so GISS alone constitutes and controls over 1/6 of the total. There is far more sharing of code, parameters, assumptions between the models than not. It isn’t rationally possible to even estimate how many “independent” “sample” “models” there are in CMIP5 (they quail at the task in Chapter 9 of AR5, after pointing out the problem in a single paragraph where no policy maker will ever read it or understand it or question it).
Assertions of “confidence” in climate statistics are confidence as in confidence game, not confidence as in statistically defensible results derived from e.g. the central limit theorem.
rgb

I strongly recommend that anyone who thinks that GISS data is in any way credible to go to Raw data NSCD, Steven Goddards or Paul Homewood or J Mahorasy or Freeman Dyson’s or Einstein’s web sites. To be even talking to these criminals ( Schmidt, Hansen ect) is an offence to society and science

It is now becoming increasingly clear that it is the oceans that are driving temperatures.
The warmists want an El Nino tjhis year aheead of Paris because it will push temperatures higher, and assist there shrills that this is the warmest year on record etc.
The problem is that the warmists know that an El Nino is a natural event (not driven by CO2) and unless 2015 is a Super El Nino like 1998 (where there was a release of energy and a step change in temperature that has still to dissipate), the effect will be short lived and a La Nina will follow and the ‘pause’ will immediately lengthen in the following year such that by the end of 2016/early 2017 the ‘pause’ will be over 20 years (on some data sets considerably longer than that).
If the energy imbalance is going into the oceans then CAGW is over since ocean response is slow and energy that has been sequestered to the deep ocean is dilluted by the vast volume of the deep ocean itself, and it cannot quickly re-surface still less in a concentrated form. .Because the deep ocean is very cold, if it was to re-surface not every 100years (as is the typical rate of the thermohaline circulation) but say re-surface every 700 years it would actually serve to cool SST and would push the planet towards an ice age. It is because notwithtanding some 4 billion years of solar heating (and the effects of any of DWLWIR) that the ocean has an average temperature of about 4 degrees that the planet has ice ages. if the average temperature of the ocean was the same as the average surface temperature, ice extent would be minimal.
The further problem for the argument that the energy imbalance is hiding in the deep ocean is
a) Given that it is now claimed “that a large fraction of the heat from human input of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has been going into the deeper ocean over the last 10-15 years (as an attempt to explain the “hiatus”)”, why was the same proportion of heat from human input of C02 and other greenhouse gases not going into the oceans in earlier years (ie., in the years when the land based thermometer record was showing a warming trend)?
b) What has changed about the physics of the atmosphere/ocean interaction, or the properties of CO2 which has caused the heat fron CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to no longer remain in the atmosphere, but instead to make their way into the deeper ocean?
c) Why are we no longer seeing the same planetary response to the effects of CO2 as were seen say during the period 1979 to 1997?
Warmists have yet to answer those questions.
There is also a further problem with the physics of DWLWIR and the absorption characterics of the oceans (which is a selective surface) that renders it difficult to explain the physical processes involved whereby additional energy imbalance from increased DWLWIR from increased greenhouse gases could find its way down to the deep ocean given that over 60% of all DWLWIR is fully absorbed within just 3 microns of the ocean and that concentrated energy (if capable of performing sensible worl in the environ in which it finds itself0 would drive copious evaporation unless the energy could be sequestered to depth (and thereby dissipated and by volume) at a rate quicker than the energy so absorbed in the top few microns would drive evaporation.
The issue is what mechanisms can sequester this energy to depth? It does not appear that it can be by conduction since at the very top of the ocean (the top millimetres) the energy flux is upwards and as far as we know energy cannot flow/swim against the direction of the flux.
It is unlikely to be by ocean overturning which is a slow mechanical process and may also be diurnal.
It is unlikely to be by physical mixing caused by wind and waves since this too is a slow mechanical process and there are times and large areas where wind conditions/sea state is no more than BF3 (or below) where there is relatively little in the way of strong wind and wave action.
There is a problem with the concept that DWLWIR can in any meaningful way heat the oceans, and at most it would appear that it merely goes to fuel evaporation (thereby cooling the very top of the ocean), but as I say from a theoretical point there is too much energy being absorbed in the top few microns and an expalanation is required as to how this energy can be quickly dissipated to volume before driving evaporation.
Fortunately for us solar energy is absorbed in a volume of water extenting several metres (not just a few microns). If solar wa absorbed in the same manner as LWIR, the oceans would have boiled off (from the top down) long ago.

Gavin Schmidt and his politically driven alarmist colleagues have managed with great skill to firmly positioned themselves between a rock and a hard place. If they adjust their models to represent reality the people will cry out look we told you there is no need for alarm. If they do nothing the people will ridicule and out them as extremists. Unless global temps. starting increasing again, and rapidly, their employers will save face by firing them for incompetence. I like to imagine these Climate Scientists on their knees very day praying that Mother Gaia will change her ways.

I like to imagine them as the prophets of Baal…“How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.
Then … the prophets of Baal … called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “O Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response … And they danced around the altar …
At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said … they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears … and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, … .
I. Kings 18:21-46.“‘Shout louder,'” O prophets of CO2!
lololololol

“‘Shout louder,’” O prophets of CO2! Be assured that you will be rewarded in measure greatly exceeding your obfuscation of veracity; beyond yet a thousand times a thousand the number of dark dollars received for your whoredom.

History is littered with examples where the alarmists refuse to answer questions of relevance. I’m reminded of the following:
Questions posed to Bert Bolin by Andrei Illarionov
Moscow World Climate Change Conference
October 1, 2003
1. What was the actual level of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere in 1980-2000?
* The forecast is alarming. What is the basis for it?
2. What are the parameters of the model of temperature anomalies? And how are they derived? Why are there such fluctuations in anthropogenic forcing observations?
3. Can we explain the temperature variation by CO2 concentration in the atmosphere in the past 1000 years?
4. Can we explain the temperature variation by CO2 concentration in the atmosphere in the past 140 years?
5. Can we explain the temperature variation by CO2 emissions of anthropogenic character?
6. Other factors explaining temperature variation: Volcanic activity? Whether to include in the model?
7. Other factors explaining temperature variation: Long-term cycles? Whether to include in the model?
8. Is the modern “global warming” unique in the last 5,000 years?
9. Can we achieve the Kyoto Protocol targets, providing the share of Annex 1 countries (including Russia, not including USA and Australia) in the world’s CO2 emissions is rapidly falling?
10. And finally: How much does it cost?
Courtesy of:http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/05/16/the-ipcc-the-uk-and-climate-censorship/http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-policy/politics/illarionov2003-8.php

Gavin Schmidt gave a lecture at the Brookhaven Lab April 28 2015 titled“What Are Climate Models Good For?”
Mirrored on youtube:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh5Kg9swEYA&w=560&h=315%5D
Durring the lecture/ evangelistic-recruitment message I don’t believe he answers none of Roger Pielke Sr.’s pertinent questions, however it does reveal Gavin Schmidt’s reasoning for his activism.To me, his lecture is notable for his picture of polar bears, revealing statements and the selections of data he presents, and the conspicuous lack of certain data. Of course he claims the models show great skill, and “greater than five sigma” signal for AGW (30:30-32:45). It is followed by a Q&A which is also revealing.
There is a recruitment call for volunteer tutoring on “How to talk to the public about climate change”(48:00-48:35)
Enjoy.

The mantra from all government agencies will soon become, “Although global temperatures have not been increasing since 2000, and may well decrease in the future, our sophisticated modelling indicates that temperatures are in fact increasing at an alarming rate, and will continue to do so forever”.

The mantra from denialists is: Although global temperatures have been increasing steadily since 2000, our sophisticated BS talk will repeat they have not”.

The empirical fact recognised by realists is:Global warming stopped nearly two decades ago.
Box 9.2 on page 769 of Chapter 9 of IPCC the AR5 Working Group 1 (i.e. the most recent IPCC so-called science report) is titledBox 9.2 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years
A “hiatus” is a stop and global mean surface temperature (GMST) over the previous 15 years (now 18 years) was not (and is not) discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence.
The Box says

Figure 9.8 demonstrates that 15-year-long hiatus periods are common in both the observed and CMIP5 historical GMST time series (see also Section 2.4.3, Figure 2.20; Easterling and Wehner, 2009; Liebmann et al., 2010). However, an analysis of the full suite of CMIP5 historical simulations (augmented for the period 2006–2012 by RCP4.5 simulations, Section 9.3.2) reveals that 111 out of 114 realizations show a GMST trend over 1998–2012 that is higher than the entire HadCRUT4 trend ensemble (Box 9.2 Figure 1a; CMIP5 ensemble mean trend is 0.21ºC per decade). This difference between simulated and observed trends could be caused by some combination of (a) internal climate variability, (b) missing or incorrect radiative forcing and (c) model response error. These potential sources of the difference, which are not mutually exclusive, are assessed below, as is the cause of the observed GMST trend hiatus.

And this from the IPCC that is tasked to provide information supportive of the anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) hypothesis.
Richard

@richardscourtney
You write this ‘A “hiatus” is a [climate global warming] stop.’ Then you write somthing that denies it: “15-year-long hiatus periods are common” which mean you’re not talking about climate but weather.

Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.

The models “rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more”.The models “rule out” a hiatus of “15 yr or more”. Can you grasp that?
And you say global warming having stopped is weather and is not climate.
OK, Wojciech, I grasp that: you say warming is climate and no warming is weather.Global warming stopped nearly two decades ago.
It is bummer that facts refute your superstitious belief in global warming, and I sympathise with your distress that reality is providing those facts.
Richard

Didn’t the Grand Poohbahs of Climatastrophy once proclaim that anthropogenic forcing by CO2 had rendered natural variation impotent in stemming the incessantly increasing rise in global temperature?
But now, even with rate-increasing annual adjustments in the historical record, temperature rise is less than the 1901-1950 average.
Hmm. So much for the “unprecedented rise.”
Speaking of adjustments, 1999 NASA/GISS data showed that USA climate cooled from 1921 through 1999, but 2014 NASA/GISS data showed that USA climate warmed during the same period.
Makes sense. The idea that global warming would fail to affect a rapidly-industrializing area of increasing population over a 79-year span with a record el Nino near the end is absurd.

All pretty harmless questions. Certainly inferior ones for use in Congressional hearings etc. Try questions in Layman’s English in future, they get to the heart of matter much more effectively with less space for BS manoeuvres in response.

Gavin Schmidt has his career dependent on a discredited theory. He is a mathematician and a master manipulator of land based temperature record data he controls by biased adjustments dropping rural stations and maximizing urban heat island effect for political reasons. The RSS satellite record is deviating from Galvin’s adjusted record lowering past temperatures, only so long his charade can continue, deviations grow with each month and year. He should be discredited by honest scientific method for his blatant manipulating data for sake of true science and honest temperature data, discharged from GISS NASA is overdue, odd NASA ignores its own satellites for temperature and official record repeatedly adjusted by this mathematician off original data down for past to show an increase in temperatures which is not reality, but guess excuse for NASA budget. It is blatantly obvious what has been done manipulating the temperature record. I hope for Congressional Hearings where Galvin can explain his biased “adjustments” and increased deviation from satellite data, what a scam, reminds me of Enron and WorldCom, please cut off funding for USDA climatic change hubs, Europe sorry you cannot but high wattage hair dryers or vacuums, sorry for 1 in 7 people on earth who cannot afford electricity and they just want to hike energy prices to fix a nonexistent problem. NASA and NOAA should not be political propaganda machines, science for science is better for public funds, but the $29 billion a year wasted in US for this issue is a waste, most not science but rather propaganda to educate BS. Lucky we did not follow crazy climatologists in 70s who said on best scientific advice we should melt polar ice caps with nukes to prevent global cooling. Newspapers and press just catch bylines on nonexistent crisis to get a quick read, public believes BS without looking into data, e.g. world sea ice at a record high today at a bit less than a million square km above average since 79 despite in past theory it was all supposed to be melted. There is theory and reality, hopefully the later will dominate as opposed to religion and belief, and propaganda as Galvin spews. If you are wrong should admit as opposed to manipulating numbers or temperature record as defense, $ billions wasted which is a shame.

This reminds me of an early lesson I learned when I was in the military working at a government lab. The jist of that lesson was, “If you don’t think you are going to like the answer, don’t ask the question”. Gavin Schmidt has learned this lesson well.

To the good Dr Pielke, it is not possible for this person to answer your questions for you are not dealing with science per sec, but post normal science. The twentieth century saw meetings of prominent scientists that formed a consensus on a model of the universe, a consensus on nuclear physics, a consensus on the model of the sun and our planetary system.
The consensus was to be adhered to at all costs, or you lost your tenure, thus the statement shut up and calculate [ he explained]. The result was that scientists were only allowed to try and prove the models and not disprove them as is the case of normal scientific endeavour. This has been branded post normal science.
The model of the universe fell apart when most of the universe was found to be missing, this did not set them on a path for a new model, but an explanation of the old on using imaginary dark matter and dark energy.
Nuclear physics suffering from the same illusions borrowing imaginary particles from a non existing ether to prop up their consensus model, I dub these imaginary friends, for they need them to perpetuate their fantasies.
Non of these people are allowed to think outside the square, they are either brainwashed or scared. Real science coming from satellites , rovers ETC is contradicting them big time, yet no one is stepping out.
Then we come to climate science and the consensus of, pure post normal nonsense, for they are only trying to prove it and not using the scientific method of trying to disprove it. Thus we have propaganda and not science.

As I’m reading this comment thread, including the exchanges between Richard Courtney and some of his detractors (so happy to hear about your improving health, Richard!) I have NPR playing, and it’s dutifully (as is it’s wont) reporting on Obama’s hysterical address to U.S. Coast Guard academy, saying how critical it is that we immediately stop sea level rise by outlawing coal burning to generate electricity in the states and effectively allow the Federal government to control the electrical generation industry.
Obama is Gavin’s ultimate “boss.” But Gavin is also a Federal bureaucrat. The U.S. bureaucracy has many tenets that survive and even thrive across political changes and elections. That said, there’s no doubt that these two men are of one mind on carbon dioxide emissions and the CAGW “crisis.” Unfortunately, Gavin will still be an alarmist bureaucrat working for the U.S. government even after Obama leaves office. But he might have to hold his tongue a bit more. If I were King of the World, both Obama and Gavin would out of a job, (and I’d think up some other devious ways of humbling both of them, too, as their personal hubris seems to be an integral part of the problem).
As an aside, it’s shameful to me how Obama has co-opted the U.S. military top brass into supporting the optics of CAGW and climate crisis. Several years ago, the Navy was forced by the idiots to buy a certain type of ethanol fuel for it’s ships, including a percentage from cellulose based production that doesn’t even exist. There’s no question these policies wasted huge amounts of money when our military is shrinking, even as global threats are increasing. Our navy is a force for civilization, at a time when piracy and thousands of fearful refugees are taking to the seas to flee political and religious persecution. I’m left to shake my head and think bad thoughts about the people who voted for Obama, who think carbon dioxide emissions are a crisis, that you can create a free market by legislation, and who lean toward the idea that the world would be better if the U.S. military were suddenly eviscerated.
/rant

It is shameful that the brass have saluted and obeyed. Any general officers inclined not to follow illegal orders have been purged, so we’re left with toadies.
The current CinCPac says with a straight face that his Number One mission is combating “Climate Change”. People see CACCA advocates giving lectures to military officers on YouTube, so conclude that the threat must be real, rather than imaginary but mandated.

Yes Mary, it is.
Brief off topic celebratory notice!
Not only has the first printing of “Climate Change, The Facts” sold out at Amazon.com in less than 30 days, as of this morning, it’s “Amazon ranking” was #1,116 in the book department. (For contrast, Dana Nuccitelli’s book about pseudo-climate science has not sold out in the 2 1/2 months since it went on sale AND was ranked this AM by Amazon at #181,683.) BUT….when I checked this afternoon, Climate Change, The Facts has risen in Amazon Ranking to # 863!!!
Congratulations Anthony and all others involved in compiling this soon to be best seller!!!

This is not a finished poem.
Gavin Schmidt — I Got The Data In Me
(most sorry Kiki Dee)
Got no troubles at NASA
I’m a rocket nothing can stop
Survival’s always the first law
And I’m in with those at the top
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
The Progressive Alliance
And its New Age Science
Say I got the data in me
I work in the mists and the fogs
By methods that none can review
To hide like a fox from the dogs
The premise of all that I do
The thermometers all want skilling
When their readings are not alarming
As the early ones all need chilling
So the later ones all need warming
An apple in a garden hangs
From the lowest branch of a tree
Why reach for anything higher
It fills my every desire
I got the devil —
I got the devil —
I got the devil in me
Eugene WR Gallun

Pielke is adopting a well-known technique for wasting the time of an expert. Basically he is cherry picking a few points he knows would take hours of analysis for Schmidt to cover. Please note that one of these questions would involve Schmidt in reading a whole book, and another appears to have four questions instead of one.
It is right that Schmidt ignores these questions.and gets on with the important job he has to do right now in preparing for the November 2015 climate summit in Paris. The science is clear and it is time to take actions.
If Pielke wants to play the question game then let him answer these:
1. Rejection of the conclusion of mainstream climate science is almost exclusively a phenomenon among English-speaking conservatives. Although it correlates with level of education among conservatives, the correlation disappears as soon as the level of formal education on climate science increases. Different survey techniques have found that 97% or 98% of climate experts (determined by publications in the academic journals) confirm that AGW is real. All national science academies throughout the world confirm that AGW is real.
Q1. Why should anyone pay attention to the material questioning AGW put out by right-wing think tanks or the tiny minority of (invariably conservative) climate scientists who dismiss the mainsteam climate science consensus?
2. Much is made of “the pause”. However, this is a treble cherry-pick. Firstly you have to look only at surface temperatures (or more specifically lower tropospheric temperatures as measured by satellites), instead of the full set of indicators (e.g. including radiative forcing imbalance and reduction of upper stratospheric temperatures). Secondly the (1998 – 2015) pause only shows up on the RSS data set, not UAH 5.6 or any of the surface temperature data sets. Thirdly, the pause requires a specific start date which coincided with a huge En Nino event.
Q2. Given that it is a treble cherry pick why should anyone pay attention to or draw conclusions from the supposed pause?
3. When comparing models with reality, those questioning mainstream climate science never apply any controls for actual ENSO state. These controls can be applied in one of two ways. Either you can compare the models trends with three individual sets of data separately – those for states of El Nino, La Nina nad neutral ENSO. Or you can select those model runs which are close to the phase (ENSO state over time) with the actual ENSO history then do the comparison. In either case the model trends are a reasonable match for actual surface temperatures when the normal scientific controls are applied.
Q3. Does he accept that the normal scientific controls for random stochastic external factors such as ENSO,solar output (TSI), and volcanoes should be applied when comparing climate model surface temperatures with actuals and that the controlled comparison results show that the climate models are basically sound?
That will do for now, but there’s four more to go.

I will answer your questions by pointing out that you use a sophists trick right at the beginning that invalidates all that follows.
Your trick is that you take two different things (one named and one not) and conflate them under just one name. AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is not CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) — but you hash together the admitted benign existence of the former with the imaginative coming disasters to be caused by the latter. You intrinsically imply that anyone who believes in AGW also believes in the certainty of coming climate disasters predicted by CAGW.
(Essentially you are saying something like this — ‘We all admit to the existence of spring rains and thus our countryside and cities will be destroyed at their arrival.’ Put that way do you see how inane your writing is?)
In the study that you cite in question #1 the truth is that 96% of papers did not imply the authors believed in CAGW. Only 2% did — the same percentage of papers which implied that the authors did not believe in either AGW or CAGW. The authors pulled the same trick you are pulling — combining that 96% of papers that implied a belief in AGW with that 2% which implied a belief in CAGW. .Then (wink, wink) this hit the newspapers as — 98% Of Science Papers Say CAGW Is Real!!!!!!!!!!!.
I believe in AGW — there are cities all over the world that have a higher temperature than the surrounding countryside. But AGW has almost zero effect on world climate.
Recently Willie Soon was attacked, the claim being made he received funding from the Koch brothers. Actually several years ago Dr. Soon, through the institution where he works, received grant money coming from the Koch Foundation to do research totally unrelated to climate. The money was used up years before the current paper for which he was being attacked.
Now it comes out that a group of climate scientists published a paper confirming how fantastic the EPA’s new regulations were and what a wonderful effect they would have on saving the climate — and between them those scientists had received nearly 50 million dollars of previous funding from the EPA with the funding still ongoing.
So based upon the money who is probably speaking honestly and without bias?.
i could go on but why waste my time on someone as blind as you.
Eugene WR Gallun
.

Here’s an document on Naomi Oreskes survey in which she found that none of 928 scientific journal articles rejected AGW, 75% concurred and 25% expressed no views. Benny Peiser tried to claim he found 34 which “rejected or doubted” AGW, but virtually all of these are not scientific publications. http://norvig.com/oreskes.html
The 34 are listed here and mostly Peiser has backed off calling them “rejected or doubted AGW”. http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/05/06/peiser/
And here is the link to the 2013 paper by Cook et al which does a very similar survey, but this time with more articles – http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article .
As you can see, the conclusions are very similar.
Then there’s the Skeptical Science peer-reviewed survey – https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm
That’s three sources saying the same thing – of the climate science research papers expressing a view on AGW, at least 97% agree with the mainstream climate science consensus.
And someone did a straw telephone poll of the papers in one of the surveys to check whether the authors agreed that AGW was real, and guess what – those contacted agreed that it was.
The evidence is that the closer a scientists field of expertise gets to climate science, the higher the percentage that will tell you AGW is real.
The interesting one is the meteorologists (of which Pielke Sr is one, as well as dabbling in climate). They used to be split around 50 : 50 on whether AGW is real, but now 90% of them will tell you it is, including some of them on air too.
And the problem with Soon is not that he accepts funding from right-wing think tanks or Koch brothers or fossil fuel companies, but that all his papers say “no conflict of interest” when there clearly is one. Further, some of the conflicts of interest were contracts signed which say that the Southern Company had a right to read and suggest (but not require) changes to the first draft of his papers published. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon#2015:_Allegations_of_disclosure_violations

Eugene,
You can see ‘Climate Pete’ doing the same thing:…at least 97% agree with the mainstream climate science consensus.
1. Consensus isn’t science. But since CP is so impressed with the consensus argument, I will point out that the OISM surveyed more than 31,000 professionals, all with degrees in the hard sciences (including more than 9,000 PhD’s). They all co-signed a statement saying that CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere. Every one of them was named and vetted.
I have regularly challenged the alarmist crowd to produce the names of even 10% of the OISM numbers, which contradict the statement. No one has ever tried. So I challenged them to produce even ONE PERCENT of the OISM numbers. That’s only about 300 names. Response: *crickets*
So the fact is that the true consensus is heavily on the side of skeptics of man-made global warming(MMGW). ‘Climate Pete’ decisively loses that argument.
2. CP says:…someone did a straw telephone poll of the papers in one of the surveys to check whether the authors agreed that AGW was real, and guess what – those contacted agreed that it was.
No names, no links, no sources, nothing. Not that anyone with any sense would believe such self-serving pablum. “Those contacted…” Sure.
3. …funding from right-wing think tanks or Koch brothers or fossil fuel companies…
Credibility totally shot. Go away.

It’s entirely possible that more scientists in relevant disciplines think that AGW is possible than not. That is a far cry from humanity being the primary driver of GW and farther still from its being catastrophic. Many who think humans might be affecting climate see our contribution as a good thing.
That’s why the short hand “climate change” is just a way to lie.

‘Climate Pete’,
No matter what you say, no matter what you believe, no matter what you preach, there is one central fact that deconstructs all of it:
Global warming stopped so long ago that everything you write has been debunked.

‘Climate Pete’,
No matter what you say, no matter what you believe, no matter what you preach, there is one central fact that deconstructs all of it:
Global warming stopped so long ago that everything you write is nonsense

The plateau shows up in all “data” sets, even the cooked book GISS and HadCRU “surface record”. Both satellite records, UAH and RSS show it, as does the balloon record. It is a scientific fact, ie an observation.
Nor does it start in 1998, so your assertion of a cherry pick is false. Applying a linear regression to RSS, there has been no warming since 1996.
Now if you want to see a real cherry pick, look at Arctic sea ice. IPCC pretends that there were no satellite observations of the Arctic before 1979, when a satellite launched for that specific purpose began operating. But in fact there are satellite observations from the 1960s onward. It just so happened that 1979 was one of the highest ice years of the past century, if not the highest. Just four years previously, Arctic sea ice extent was about the same as now. Thus, using 1975 as a start date would show no change in 40 years.
But in fact Arctic sea ice extent is cyclical longer term when year to year fluctuations are averaged out. Which is why its extent in 2013-22 is liable to be greater than in 2003-12. In any case, global sea ice is already in an upswing, thanks to the Antarctic, which is the sea ice that really matters climatically, due to its much greater effect on albedo.

Climate Pete
It gives me great pleasure to agree with you for the first time.
You say

The science is clear and it is time to take actions.

Yes, the science is clear.
Global warming stopped nearly two decades ago and this falsifies the hypothesis that human emissions of greenhouse gases will cause harmful global warming.
Yes, it is time to take actions.
We need to defund the rent-seekers, pseudoscientists and subsidy junkies who have been living off the global warming scare.
Richard

Richard, Do you understand that your statement “Global warming stopped nearly two decades ago and this falsifies the hypothesis that human emissions of greenhouse gases will cause harmful global warming.” is a treble cherry pick and is not “controlled” for external factors as science generally demands?
1. You are focusing on only one aspect of AGW. A much better one is the reduction in upper stratospheric temperatures over the same time period, because that determines what energy imbalance / radiative forcing we are currently getting. And given that figure you can readily work out an approximate eventual surface temperature rise.
2. You are picking only the RSS data set and ignoring both UAH 5.6 and ALL the surface temperature datasets.
3. You are cherry picking a period which starts with the largest El Nino in the last 20 years – although it may well be that the current El Nino in progress may take that honour – who knows. Try starting from a date 10 years previously
4. And the point on control for external factors is that you should try to assess whether the ENSO status has affected trends. If you do that you find that the trends for years with the same ENSO status are pretty much all very similar and upwards, not static.
So that is four things you have to be very biased about in order to reach the conclusion you have.

Richard, Do you understand that your statement “Global warming stopped nearly two decades ago and this falsifies the hypothesis that human emissions of greenhouse gases will cause harmful global warming.” is a treble cherry pick and is not “controlled” for external factors as science generally demands?

That is total nonsense and the remainder of your blather is a set of straw men based on those falsehoods. I will address the falsehoods.
You don’t understand what you have written.
If you did understand your own words then you would have understood
1.
I made no “cherry pick”: your assertion is a falsehood.
2.
“Control” for “external factors” (whatever you think that means) is not relevant to determination of whether something is warming or not.
3.
Science does NOT make the “demands” you state but pseudoscience does.I made no “cherry pick”: your assertion is a falsehood.
There has been no discernible global warming at 95% confidence for at least the most recent 14 years with only the GISS determination indicating less than 19 years and RSS indicating for the most recent 26 years.
You are plain wrong when you write

You are picking only the RSS data set and ignoring both UAH 5.6 and ALL the surface temperature datasets.

Check the facts for yourself and you may start to escape the conditioning imposed on you by your cult. Global Average Surface Temperature Anomaly (GASTA) has not risen (or fallen) at a rate discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence for several years according to ALL its different compilations.
The data compiled by Dr Ross McKitrick (of RSS) provides these values he has computed for the length of the period to present when global warming was not discernibly different from zero at 95% for each data set.
SATELLITE INDICATIONS
UAH: No discernible warming since July 1996: i.e. for 20 years.
RSS: No discernible warming since December 1992: i.e. for 26 years.
SURFACE INDICATIONS
HadCRUT4.3:No discernible warming since May 1997: i.e. for 19 years
Hadsst3:No discernible warming since May 1995: i.e. for 21 years
GISS: No discernible warming since June 2000: i.e. for more than 14 years.
There are over 60 different papers published in attempt to explain the cessation of global warming that is often misnamed as the “Pause” or the “Hiatus”. It is misnamed because the cessation may end with warming or cooling and nobody can know which until it happens.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its most recent scientific report (AR5) Box 9.2 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years
That was published 3 years ago and the then “Past 15 Years” is now 18 years.
Climate Pete, face reality as expressed by ALL measurements and the IPCC because it will help you to escape the conditioning imposed on you by your cult.“Control” for “external factors” (whatever you think that means) is not relevant to determination of whether something is warming or not.
Warming consists of an increase in temperature. Global warming consists of an increase in Global Average Surface Temperature Anomaly (GASTA).
Whatever you mean by “external factors” is not relevant because they do not alter the fact that GASTA has not risen (or fallen) at a rate discernibly different from zero at 95% confidence for several years according to ALL its different compilations; i.e. global warming stopped nearly two decades ago.
The existence of ENSO effects is not relevant because that is merely a possible factor affecting WHY global warming has stopped and is not a refutation of the fact that global warming has stopped.
You say one should “try starting from a date 10 years earlier”. NO! When considering the time global warming stopped then one starts from NOW and works back from now until a period is observed to include warming. Similarly, when considering when a person stopped growing one does not include the 10 years before he stopped growing.
Your cult has really, really brainwashed you if you cannot understand that.
Stratospheric temperature and energy balance are not relevant to GASTA which is about surface temperatures. The stratosphere is above the troposphere (i.e. the lowest layer of the atmosphere) and energy balance can alter without warming or cooling (e.g. because of phase changes of water).
I repeat, Climate Pete, face reality as expressed by ALL measurements and the IPCC because it will help you to escape the conditioning imposed on you by your cult.Science does NOT make the “demands” you state but pseudoscience does.
Science attempts to find the closest approximation to ‘truth’ by seeking information that refutes existing idea(s) then changing, amending and/or rejecting an idea to incorporate new information.Pseudoscience decides an idea is ‘true’ then seeks information which supports the idea while refusing to accept information that refutes the idea.Climate Pete, your entire post is pure pseudoscience.
Face reality as expressed by ALL measurements and the IPCC and reject pseudoscience because that will help you to escape the conditioning imposed on you by your cult.
Richard

I have checked the facts for myself. My Excel spreadsheet is a little outdated at present but contains temperatures from the source datasets (RSS, UAH, GISTEMP, C&W) through December 2013. It is invalid to use raw HadCRUT4 data as it is known to omit a lot of grid points around the Arctic which is where a lot of warming has taken place, so these points have to be filled in using kriging or some other means. The Cowtan & Way data set give you the choice of HadCRUT4 plus kriging or spatial infill from UAH satellite data (it does not use UAH time series).
The spreadsheet currently contains data currently up to December 2013, and the data is smoothed over 12 months, so my data points go up to July 2013. Here are two results from the spreadsheet.
1. The UAH trend from September 1997 (data cherry picked as you would want it to give minimum trend) to July 2013 is 0.69 C per century, with a standard error in the trend of 0.18 C/century. A two sigma (just over 96%) confidence limit thus gives a range of 0.33 to 1.05 C/century. This directly contradicts your statement above, which I bet you have not worked out for yourself from the raw figures.
The 96 percentile range for UAH does therefore show significant warming 1997-2013. The range does not span zero, and could be as high as a degree C.
Your quote above from McKitrick is, of course, in direct contradiction to my spreadsheet findings.
Personally, I would trust my spreadsheet (and extension of temperatures on it by another 12 months is not going to affect trends much because 2014 was a pretty hot year). My advice to you would be to do your own spreadsheet using the SLOPE function for the base trend and INDEX(LINEST(:,: ,TRUE,TRUE),2,1) to get the trend standard error. Or send an email to user technopete at email domain bariumtitanatemechanism.com and I’ll send you the spreadsheet.
2. If you average the four datasets (UAH 5.6, RSS, GISTEMP, C&W) and then take the trend and two sigma bounds you get a graph which looks like this.http://api.ning.com/files/NHPaItPS5EgaXJA3hsprTMwKPD4fRVckcyC3fIYLo*VisPF9WsQT5a-RUmO7CkQTbwfh-L4tZmVC0iGYOQYDVqKMTZ8Qq-0o/TemperatureDatasetTrendsWith96PercentBoundsToJuly2013.jpg
From the graph you can see the minimum in trend for start date of 1997/8. The brown and yellow lines are the two sigma (standard error in trend) confidence levels, which show a minimum confirmed positive trend for this start date. The graph also shows how cherry-picked 1997/8 start date is compare with earlier start dates. Trends starting after this date are starting to get high levels of fluctuations, however, because the time period is too small to give stable trend values over time. Trends starting after 2006 are suppressed completely because they would require larger y axis values.
Based on the evidence submitted above, I repeat that the “pause” is a treble cherry-pick on RSS dataset, trend start date, and using the surface / lower tropospheric indicator instead of looking at a bigger picture, and is not controlled for ENSO state. If anyone does not know what controlling for a random external input means then go Google it.
However, the whole argument is a complete waste of time anyway. The only thing that matters is the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, and this is dictated by upper stratospheric temperatures which have not stopped reducing during the “pause” period. You should try to understand the ramifications of this. While the energy balance is out of kilter, then it is inevitable that at some point surface temperatures must rise, because this is the only thing which can happen to restore the equilibrium. All the temperature trends (and to some extent models) are trying to tell you is how fast this happens, but this does not affect the final equilibrium temperature rise.

Pretty likely the pitiful anthropogenic aliquot from fossil carbon will already be well on its way to nearly permanent re-sequestration by the inevitable conspiracy of the biome and the sun long before your much unnecessarily feared equilibrium is reached.
=================

Based on the evidence submitted above, I repeat that the “pause” is a treble cherry-pick on RSS dataset, trend start date, and using the surface / lower tropospheric indicator instead of looking at a bigger picture, and is not controlled for ENSO state. If anyone does not know what controlling for a random external input means then go Google it.

NO!
You are refusing to face the reality that global warming is a discernible rise in Global Average Surface Temperature Anomaly (GASTA. Global warming is NOT a change in some processed version of GASTA or any other straw man you want to erect.Based on your spreadsheet using your unstated algorithms you claim that everybody except you is wrong.
The only thing we know of your assertion (n.b. assertion NOT “evidence”) is that you process the data before combining it (you say you “average” it) and you average the values from the different data sets in contravention of Nyquist. That is pure pseudoscience which you provide in attempt to pretend (to yourself?) that reality can be ignored. In reality, global warming has stopped.
Publish your work if you really think your spreadsheet shows reality is other than it is.
Richard

Go look up what has happened to upper stratospheric temperatures in that time. It is these which control the energy imbalance, which has grown larger over the last 20 years.
It’s pretty irrelevant what the models say, because they are only trying to apportion the extra heat to atmosphere, surface and various bits of the ocean. The extra heat is clearly there and getting worse.

A veritable collection of cherry picks, myths or red herrings.
1/2 The pause only affects surface temperatures which can vary considerably. There has been no pause in the earth’s energy imbalance, which is the really important thing. And the pause is a treble cherry-pick – see my post above.
3/4 is based on a misunderstanding of the dynamic CO2 processes. Although an individual molecule of CO2 does not survive for more than a few years in the atmosphere, 40% of the excess quantity of CO2 pumped out by humans stays there for hundreds of years.
5 is just plain speculation with nothing to back it up, whereas AGW mechanisms are backed with solid science and thousands of peer-reviewed journal publications.
I could go on, but it is enough for now if you understand the other 17 are irrelevant to whether AGW is real or not – same as the first five.
If you decide to learn enough to understand the items on the list properly you would be able to prune the list for yourself. I recommend https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x

Over the last two days, I have been commenting at ATTP on their posthttps://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/watt-about-rogers-questions/#comment-56471
Today, in my last comment on that weblog, they are holding it up rather than posting. Quite frankly, I tried to engage, and was encouraged yesterday when they actually admitted they made an error. Not today as the usual trolls have started piling on. Just as with SKS, they are not interested in scientific debate but want to play “gotcha”. Even Gavin Schmidt’s not relevant to the question response shows he is not interested in any perspective but his.
Below is the comment I submitted that they are holding up (let’s see if they actually post).
May 21, 2015 at 9:10 pm
russellseitz – Perchance you have a cite for this? It is an erroneous statement. For example,there are three dimensional radiative transfer codes. They produce instantaneous radiative forcing.
ATTP – On your statement
“I also don’t think that the term forcing in climate science is quite equivalent to a force in physics.”
This says a lot about the disagreement. Climate science is a physics problem (as well as a chemical and biological). Maybe this is one reason some in climate science have so much trouble communicating its findings to the outside science community who have knowledge of physics.
On the current radiative imbalance, a good reference ishttp://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/ – see their Figure.
Since 2003 the positive radiative imbalance has lessened (although there is an uptick recently). Interesting that there was cooling between 2003 and 2005. If my participation on your weblog has done nothing else, I hope you routinely look at this data and assess what is the radiative imbalance in Watts per meter squared using that data.
I am going to now leave this site. For a while yesterday it was constructive, but now you and others are just repeating themselves (as am I). Also, the tone and substance of the comments have deteriorated. I will rejoin if you address the other questions I asked.
If there remain anyone open on my views on this on your weblog, you could read these peer reviewed papers on the subject
Ellis et al. 1978: The annual variation in the global heat balance of the Earth. J. Geophys. Res., 83, 1958-196 http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/ellis-et-al-jgr-1978.pdf
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/r-247.pdf
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/r-334.pdf
National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties. Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate Change, Climate Research Committee, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 208 pp. http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309095069/html/
Finally, don’t be so critical of Anthony Watts but look at the mirror in terms of how a number of your commentators participate. They certainly are trolls and poison debate.

> They cut the end off my comment.
No, I did. For less than a minute. I put it back as soon as AT commented on it. Had he not, I would have deleted it, just as I tried to delete any bits that would have excused Senior’s renowned dodge.
***
Here’s a relevant comment that he has not repeated here:

The header was snarky and unnecesasary. I did not write that. My header would be Questions for Gavin Schmidt, Director of GISS.

Perhaps obscured in the fine scientific points articulated by Pielke Pere, and raised by past events, is that the answers to these questions argue directly to grievous policy malfunction by all spheres over the last couple of decades, from the direction of climate research to the most basic of simple economic acts, such as keeping the lights on.
There has been so much damage, and these Schmitters have much to answer for. I do not expect answers from them, and would be surprised at any such admissions against interest, no matter what Nature has to say. There is screaming in the machine.
==================

“Mosher
Newsflash- as a public servant he owes every US citizen an answer. I understand that some federal bureaucrats never quite catch on to that simple principle in our democracy. It appears to have gone over your head as well.”

Ah no he doesnt.
My postman is a public servant. He has a boss. That boss is not me or you. He has a job description.
he is paid to perform that job. I dont get to demand answers from him on how the postal system works.
Answering questions from the public is not part of his job description.
Roger and you and me dont get to decide what Gavins job description is. You dont get to demand answers

Thanks, Mosh. Actually, yes, we do get to demand answers. Anyone who wishes to can file a FOIA request and other than a variety of reasonable exceptions, the folks in the Government have to answer it. This is precisely the difference between say you or I and the Gavermint—you and I can ignore FOIA requests. The Gav cannot.
Now, obviously we can’t demand answers from Gavin in this forum, nor would I wish to. This is an open marketplace of ideas where participation is always voluntary. Gavin is certainly free to ignore all of the comments. As you point out correctly, his boss is not me or you.
The mystery to me is that with few exceptions, the mainstream climate scientists are so unwilling to answer questions and defend their own claims in the open marketplace of ideas, whether that is here or in any other forum that they cannot censor. Roger Pielke has asked good questions and been willing to discuss them anywhere reasonable. Seems to me like the upside is much greater than the downside … but hey, I’m just a guy who believes in answering questions.
Best wishes to you,
w.

FOIA requests are for records, as in things that are already in those records, they are a matter of record, they already exist.
So go ahead, submit an FOIA with your list of arbitrary questions. All the goobermint can do is search their records to find out if those arbitrary questions have existing answers in their records.
As for what you do, that’s for you to decide (you have no one to answer to but yourself), as for what Gavin does, that’s for him to decide (meaning anything outside of the job description/requirements/duties).
Signed,
Former gooberment employee who definitely did not have a job description even remotely suggestive of communicating to anyone/anytime in the public domain.
Speaking of censorship …

“”3. There are questions on the skill of the multi-decadal climate prediction models in terms of their use for regional impact studies for the coming decades. These models have been tested in hindcast runs. What are your answers to the following:
When run in hindcast (over the last few decades) where the forcings of added CO2 and other human inputs of greenhouse gases and aerosols are reasonably well known:
Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections
Easy but there are two answers.\
When the models have been primed with the aforesaid forcings and have been programmed with the hindcast data they predict the past changes perfectly and adjust the forcings to match.
Where they have not been programmed with the past data and the models use the forcings to hindcast they fail miserably.
You do not need Gavin for that one.

Climate Pete You wrote
“Pielke Sr clear is one of the 3% of those working in climate science who argues against the 97% climate science expert consensus.”
Your statement is factually incorrect. The “97%” have not accepted the consensus. They conclude there is a human CO2 footprint on the climate system.
I am part of that group, not the 3% [indeed, I have published on the role of human landscape change on climate; I also agree add CO2 has a role on the climate]
For a more accurate survey, see
Brown, F., J. Annan, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Is there agreement amongst climate scientists on the IPCC AR4 WG1? https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/brown.pdf
Here is a summary of our findings
“1. The largest group of respondents (45-50%) concur with the IPCC perspective as given in the
2007 Report.
2. A significant minority (15-20%), however, conclude that the IPCC understated the seriousness of the threat from human additions of CO2.
3. A significant minority (15-20%), in contrast, conclude that the IPCC overstated the role of human additions of CO2 relative to other climate forcings.
4. Almost all respondents (at least 97%) conclude that the human addition of CO2 into the atmosphere is an important component of the climate system and has contributed to some extent in recent observed global average warming.”
Of course, the AGU EOS publication refused to publish.
Roger Sr.

“Of course, the AGU EOS publication refused to publish.”
“In our poll, there were 140 responses out of the 1807 who were contacted by the first author. The
authors participated along with poll specialist David Jepson (Bsc Hons) in writing the polling
questions (see Table 1 for the questions), but had no knowledge of who participated in the polling.
It is interesting to note, however, that among the respondents were a substantial number of senior
scientists and leading figures in climate science, whose support and interest in the poll were much
appreciated. It is important to recognize that we are not presenting the results as representing
anything other than the views of those who responded as we have no way to assess the relationship
of the responders with the total relevant population.”
Of course, now I see why.

Roger,
The categorisations in http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/media/erl460291datafile.txt of five papers of which you are one of the authors in “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature” Cook et al 2013 http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article are 4,3,3,3,2.
The relevant categories are :-
(2) Explicit endorsement without quantification
Explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a known fact.
(3) Implicit endorsement Implies humans are causing global warming.
E.g., research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause
(4a) No position
Does not address or mention the cause of global warming
(4b) Uncertain
Expresses position that human’s role on recent global warming is uncertain/undefined
So on this basis you most definitely belong mainly in the 97%, and I apologise for lumping you in with the 3%, though may look up your 4-rated paper later.
I do not agree with your quoted position that CO2 is responsible only for a minority of radiative forcing and surface temperature increase but that humans are responsible for all of it in one way or another. However, at this stage the discussion ought to be couched in terms of expectation and uncertainty values, on a Bayesian basis, which is beyond the scope here.
I also note that you were the 6% (1 in 15) dissenting voice from the AGU statement on global warming.
Climate Pete

dbstealey said “No matter what you say, no matter what you believe, no matter what you preach, there is one central fact that deconstructs all of it:
Global warming stopped many years ago.”
The evidence says that the only precise version of your statement which is true would read “the lower tropospheric temperatures provided by the RSS dataset show no rising trend over a period of 20 years.”
My version of a cherry picked (to suit me) statement (which is equally valid to your statement) is that the Cowtan and Way hybrid temperature data set shows a solid 1.1 degrees C per century rise between 1997 and 2013. My statement has equal validity to yours. The conclusion I can draw, equally validly to you, is that AGW is real and ongoing.
However, the truth is that neither on their own looks at a broad enough picture – a better prediction of the AGW trend will use as much available evidence as possible.
Now let us define some terms :-
WARMING is the condition where more energy (strictly power) enters the top of the atmosphere from the sun than leaves the top of the atmosphere into space. The outgoing radiation includes both high energy reflected sunlight and low energy wavelengths consistent with surface and atmospheric temperatures.
Now whether the earth’s surface is warming or not, there is an imbalance at the top of the atmosphere. In virtually every case 95% and more recently higher than this) goes into warming the oceans which have fourth thousand times the heat capacity of the atmosphere for the same temperature rise.
Now the culture here is to look at only surface temperature rises, specifically from whichever surface temperature dataset gives the lowest temperature trends (RSS currently, though this was not always flavour of the month). However, the law of conservation of energy says that the earth as a whole is warming because more energy is entering the earth system than is leaving it. It does not really matter where the energy ends up.
Current best estimate of such energy imbalance (radiative forcing) is around +1.9 Watts /sq m, up 0.4 from +1.5 W/sq m in 1998. Any positive number implies warming of the earth, and it is clear from the numbers that the rate of warming is increasing over time.
The surface temperature datasets contain huge random fluctuations in temperature (known in the trade as “noise”) and against this the AGW component (“signal”) is small, so to obtain a good reading of the AGW signal component of surface temperature datasets you have to look as broadly as you can – the more readings over the longer timescales the more chance you stand of picking out what is happening.
Nate Silver’s book “The Signal and the Noise” has a very good section on climate changes, which I am only part-way through reading. However, the argument he makes is that predictions based on real physical laws are far preferable to those which are entirely data driven. The mainstream climate science is based greenhouse warming for which the laws have been known for 150 years. Any predictions based on one (or even multiple) high-noise low-noise temperature data sets by contrast are much more liable to error.
The obvious conclusion is that AGW warming is real and ongoing, and that you only dispute that because you are looking too narrowly.
Oh and Nate Silver also cautions that overconfidence (such as yours) is one highly significant cause of failed predictions (such as “Global warming stopped many years ago”).
Try to understand a little more of how to get a better assessment of such matters, rather than producing the standard catch phrases which are much in vogue here. Then you may begin to see why AGW is based on a concensus and a whole slew of research evidence, rather than a single totally narrow surface temperature data set.

Apparently real, ongoing and mild, this AGW, a net benefit for the whole biome, not to mention the greening, omigaia! Observations and models both useful, but observations will give best clues to as yet unknown natural variations.
==========

CP, that’s a lotta pixels trying to explain away what everyone knows:Global warming stopped many years ago.
You try to refute that with an assertion:The obvious conclusion is that AGW warming is real and ongoing…
No, it isn’t. That is your own belief system, but it has nothing to do with reality. Here is a chart from data recorded by Dr. Phil Jones, an über-Warmist:http://s10.postimg.org/64lz3lyu1/HADCRUT4_from_2000.png
Even the AGU now refers to “the Global Warming Hiatus”, which means that global warming has stopped. Go argue with them if you want. You’re making zero progress here with your baseless assertions.

dbstealey. The problem you have in spades is focusing on only one metric of AGW – which is short/medium term surface temperatures, rather than looking at energy flows.
The science says that, since the sunlight entering the earth’s atmosphere is more or less fixed, the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere cannot come into equilibrium unless the long-wave (infrared) radiation leaving the earth increases, and this needs an increase in surface temperatures. Not necessarily today or tomorrow, but at some point in the future. Nothing can avert that (unless we start removing CO2 from the atmosphere which would allow upper stratospheric temperatures to increase).
So we have a scenario where you are claiming warming has stopped. You would like to pretend it is for all time, but there is not a shred of evidence that warming will not restart, since even you would admit it was rampant prior to 1997.
Further the energy imbalance (radiative forcing) is still increasing. The strong conclusion is that therefore warming is bound to start up again some time – this year, next year, next five years, next decade. And that is why we have to take action on CO2 and other GHG emissions.
And the larger the radiative forcing imbalance is when the surface warming restarts the faster surface temperatures are going to start rising when the sea stops taking as much the excess heat. Radiative forcing is increasing all the time.
So, even if your treble cherry-picked RSS surface temperature “pause” is valid at present it has to be a transitory state which cannot last.
And it is therefore crucial that the countries of the world do something about it, before we make the world significantly harder for humans to inhabit safely and peacefully.

Nope, anthropogenic warming, to the extent man can do it, will only be a net benefit to the total biome and to human society. The greening is icing on the cake.
Who but humans can sustain the atmospheric CO2 concentration? Who renews it but us?
===========

Also, Pauvre Pete, your scenario ignores possible cooling climate variations. You are really doing no more than delineating the properties of CO2 in a sealed flask in the laboratory, and describing the theoretical warming of its greenhouse effect.
Kiddo, there is way more than that going on. Like I’ve told Ken Rice: ‘and Then There’s Everything Else’, which encompasses a great deal more than the physical radiative effect of one simple chemical compound. ‘Everything Else’ also includes a great deal of poorly understood atmospheric, oceanic and other systemic physics.
How sure can you be, Pete, that the only effect on climate for the near and medium term will be the rising CO2 concentration? You seem to believe that, but just why mystifies me.
==============

kim says:How sure can you be, Pete…
Pete isn’t just sure, he’s certain.
He’s also wrong, as Planet Earth is showing him.
Global warming stopped a long time ago. But rather than admit it and try to find out where the alarmist crowd’s premise went wrong, they ‘say anything’.
A real scientific skeptic would try to find out what went wrong with his premise. He would ask other scientists to help — and they would be happy to help him, because any real scientist is interested in knowledge, first and foremost.
But CP and the rest of the alarmist cult aren’t interested in knowledge. They demand to be right. Since the planet is making it clear that their premise was wrong, they will “say anything” rather than admit they were wrong.
The bottom line: Global warming stopped many years ago. C. Pete just cannot admit that fact. So he will say anything to avoid admitting that he was wrong.
That’s not science. That is a combination of politics and religion, and rational arguments cannot convince someone like that.

His, and others’, problem is that even if his energy balance scenario is correct, then the ‘missing’ energy seems to have gone so deep as not to re-appear short of the onset of glaciation. This deepsixes the catastrophe if so and probably isn’t so because of clouds reflecting the ‘missing’ energy. So, he’s wrong about catastrophe even if he’s right about energy balance and wrong about catastropohe if he’s wrong about energy balanace.
He might as well accept the future’s understanding of man’s pitiful little aliquot of fossil CO2. It has done, and will continue to do, far more good than harm.
======================

Meh, the problem Climate Pete and others have in the spades that will dig the grave of their catastrophic consensus is the unholy focus on only one climate forcing. What makes it so unholy is the focus is on the one thing that the Earth cannot sustain itself with, and that is an adequate atmospheric concentration of CO2.
Double heh, the Holy Wars over the ideal concentration have just begun. The plants are already organizing their home grown militias, and regulating their drills.
====================

Climate Pete says:WARMING is the condition where more energy (strictly power) enters the top of the atmosphere from the sun than leaves the top of the atmosphere into space.
Give it up, Pete. Moving the goal posts only confirms that you will “Say Anything”, rather than admit that your CO2=cAGW conjecture could be wrong.
Warming = higher temperatures.
Global temperatures have not risen for over 18 years.
Therefore, global warming has stopped.
So now you’re off on a heat flow tangent. Just like lawyers, you can “say anything”. But the only ‘metric’ worth beans is global temperature, which is the same now as it was 18 years ago.
If you’re so good at predicting the future, try the stock market. But be careful, because you’ve been WRONG about global warming for at least 18 years now. Just like the boy who cried “Wolf!!”, no one believes you any more. Your credibility is gone. Kaput.
Once more for the slower students:
Warming = higher temperatures. That has not happened. Therefore, there is no global warming. QED

dbstealey.
You used averaged HadCRUT4 data in a graph above, without ever reading the metadata associated with the temperature data set. If you had read the metadata you would realise a more sophisticated approach is needed because HadCRUT4 does not include all 5 x 5 degree grid points, therefore the spatial averages you get are wrong.
There are various ways of filling in the missing points in order to get a better global average temperature anomaly. One of them is kriging, which is what GISTEMP uses. Cowtan and Way supply a kriged version of the HadCRUT4 data set (as well as the hybrid one). Here is the global average chart and trend from their kriged version of the HadCRUT4 data.http://api.ning.com/files/8KOwdycLvXQNaQ*PQOm9glxGbvU7ELR24JZDN2Ok7HcHdjCmIDmpPJT3qoA5c0sZT9RmNrbJjOo2evQyWy0Lpg1XE1G3WHwv/CW1997To2015Moyhu.jpg
The chart was screen captured from Nick Stokes excellent Moyhu temperature trend viewer at http://www.moyhu.blogspot.com.au/p/temperature-trend-viewer.html
As you should be able to see for yourself (though I am beginning to have doubts), there is a clear trend withe expectation value of 1.07C / century and confidence interval from 0.4t to 1.67 C/ century.
This gives the lie to your statement there has been no warming recently.
Further, if you pay some attention to what is going on with the current El Nino, you will find it is now expected to last the whole of the summer, and possibly until the end of the year. Smoothed 12 month global temperatures tend to lag the Nino3.4 area temperature by around 4 months, although the two temperature changes will not be equal. However, it is now pretty inevitable that 2015 global average temperatures are going to take an upwards hike, and that 2015 is likely to be the hottest year ever. This may even be true on your favourite RSS dataset. In fact, expert opinion is not ruling out the possibility that surface (and lower tropospheric) temperatures could take a hike by as much as 0.5 degrees C.
So be afraid – be very afraid – your “warming has stopped” position, which is not even true right now, may be just about to crumble into dust before your very eyes.
And once more for the really really slow students…
The important thing is the rate at which the earth as a whole is accumulating excess heat. At some point physics says that this has to be translated into increasing surface temperatures, but the basic physics does not say precisely when. DBStealy ignores this ticking time bomb every time he maintains surface temperatures are the only valid measure of AGW.

C. Pete,
You are twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to explain why Planet Earth refuses to do what you want.
Dr. Phil Jones’ HadCru data is only one database. There are others, including the most accurate global temperature data from satellites:https://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/screenhunter_9421-may-21-04-46.gif
You say:So be afraid – be very afraid…
And:DBStealey ignores this ticking time bomb
Um, you’ll excuse me if I am not alarmed. Measurements showing that MMGW is a serious problem would alarm me, and cause me to change my mind. But there are no such measurements! Despite your excessive number of pixels used to try and convince us otherwise, the ultimate Authority — Planet Earth — is busy debunking your “dangerous man-made global warming” scare. The only “ticking time bomb” is in your imagination.
If we eliminate your cut and pasted talking points, your “right-wing think tanks”, your “Koch brothers” nonsense, and your Big Oil “fossil fuel companies” arguments, what are we left with?
We are left with your measurement-free Belief. So listen up:
In science, DATA IS ESSENTIAL. Measurements are data.
But there are no measurements quantifying man-made global warming (MMGW). Not a single one. Despite thousands of scientists diligently searching for verifiable measurements quantifying MMGW (because it would bring them a Nobel Prize, along with fame and fortune if they found any such evidence), no one has ever found any verifiable, testable measurements quantifying AGW.
What does that mean? It means one of two things are possible:
Either MMGW does not exist, or MMGW is just too small to measure. In either case, it can be completely disregarded.
Now, it’s clear that you buy into the belief that dangerous MMGW is a serious threat, despite having no measurements showing that it even exists. So I have a question for you:What would it take for you to admit that your ‘dangerous MMGW scare has been deconstructed? That it isn’t a problem?
How about a full twenty years of no global warming? How about über-Warmist Dr. Phil Jones admitting that statistically, global warming has stopped? Would that convince you? How about another ten years with no testable measurements of AGW being produced? Or, how about glaciers a mile thick covering Chicago again? Would that convince you that your CO2=CAGW conjecture is wrong?
Or would nothing convince you? There are people like that: nothing can convince them that dangerous MMGW does not exist. Are you one of them?
If not, be specific: what, exactly, would convince you you’re wrong?

Philip Finck,
This has been endlessly discussed, and put to bed. Sorry you missed it.
But the short elevator speech:
RSS and UAH use slightly different data and calibration algorithms, but they both show the same thing within a tenth of a degree or so. And they are converging.
Which one is correct? They are both satellite measurements, so take your pick. Both RSS and UAH are more accurate than any land based data.
Also, you can play with the WoodForTrees site to get just about anything, as you show by selecting year 2000 in your example. But if we go back 13 years with UAH, we get this. And going back a decade we get this.
What is indisputable is the fact that global warming stopped many years ago. That fact certainly puts about four or five torpedoes into the ‘SS Man-Made Global Warming ship’. She’s going down.

I see that both Climate Pete and Philip Fink, are missing a central problem of having little to zero warming from their own temperature charts, that helpfully undermines the numerous AGW based temperature models they seem so fond of.
Quoting Pete, who seems to lack logical thinking here, since he has actually smashed his own position by showing the little warming he is holding hard onto is well below the IPCC chimp5 models temperature ensemble of much higher warming than the 1.07C warming per century, Pete is drawling on:
“As you should be able to see for yourself (though I am beginning to have doubts), there is a clear trend withe expectation value of 1.07C / century and confidence interval from 0.4t to 1.67 C/ century.”
The IPCC has SPECIFICALLY stated at least .20C to .30C warming PER decade! is EXPECTED, this BASED on the AGW hypothesis.
Fink, seems to miss it too that he as well is damaging the AGW hypothesis by showing far less warming than the IPCC and hypothesis said it should.
He posted a RSS temperature chart for years 1995 to 2015, which does show a tiny warming trend, that is a total of just…. he he he…. .1C over 20 years! which is waaaaay below what the AGW hypothesis said it should be doing. The IPCC has long stated it should warm at least .20C per the recent decades and it never has since 1990.
DR. Jones himself admits that ALL short warming trends are very similar with each other in his BBC interview with Roger Harrabin,showing that the latest warming trend,from 1979-1998 is not unusual or alarming:
He was asked this question:
“A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?”
His reply in part was,
“So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.”
Go see HIS temperature chart in the link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm
.

I still find it quite miraculous that that question was asked by Harrabin and answered by Jones. It was in the media shock after ClimateGate, and briefly, I thought that the two of them were going honest.
A very important and revelatory question. Where is man’s effect on those three nearly identical slopes of rise?
==============

Only in the last quarter of the last century has the correlation between temperature rise and CO2 rise been any good at all. This whole extraordinary popular delusion may only be the grandest example yet of the ‘Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc’ logical fallacy. Better, to the degree that the warning of warming is extravagant is the delusive bubble.
Face it: Mild warming and magnificent greening is the hallmark and will be the legacy of Anthropogenic Warming. It’s all good.
So now that you can relax about that, get back to work. There’s plenty of that and we’ve been burning sunlight, so if you want any supper, get busy.
======================

Climate Pete here is the evidence. Why don’t you refute each point with data ,not theory to prove I am wrong. You will not do it because there is no supportive data. I would hardly call all these blunders SELECT EVIDENCE.
AGW theory has predicted thus far every single basic atmospheric process wrong.
In addition past historical climatic data shows the climate change that has taken place over the past 150 years is nothing special or unprecedented, and has been exceeded many times over in similar periods of time in the historical climatic record. I have yet to see data showing otherwise.
Data has also shown CO2 has always been a lagging indicator not a leading indicator. It does not lead the temperature change. If it does I have yet to see data confirming this.
SOME ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES AND OTHER MAJOR WRONG CALLS.
GREATER ZONAL ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION -WRONG
TROPICAL HOT SPOT – WRONG
EL NINO MORE OF -WRONG
GLOBAL TEMPERATURE TREND TO RISE- WRONG
LESSENING OF OLR EARTH VIA SPACE -WRONG? I have a study showing this to be so.
LESS ANTARCTIC SEA ICE-WRONG
GREATER /MORE DROUGHTS -WRONG
MORE HURRICANES/SEVERE WX- WRONG
STRATOSPHERIC COOLING- ?? because lack of major volcanic activity and less ozone due to low solar activity can account for this. In addition water vapor concentrations decreasing.
WATER VAPOR IN ATMOSPHERE INCREASING- WRONG- all of the latest data shows water vapor to be on the decrease.
AEROSOL IMPACT- WRONG- May be less then a cooling agent then expected, meaning CO2 is less then a warming agent then expected.
OCEAN HEAT CONTENT TO RISE- WRONG – this has leveled off post 2005 or so. Levels now much below model projections.
Those are the major ones but there are more. Yet AGW theory lives on.
Maybe it is me , but I was taught when you can not back up a theory with data and through observation that it is time to move on and look into another theory. Apparently this does not resonate when it comes to AGW theory , and this theory keeps living on to see yet another day.
Maybe once the global temperature trend shows a more definitive down trend which is right around the corner (according to my studies ) this nonsense will come to an end. Time will tell.
Greenhouse score card showing more blundershttp://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/scorecard.htm
Past historical data showing no correlation.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/11/does-co2-correlate-with-temperature-history-a-look-at-multiple-timescales-in-the-context-of-the-shakun-et-al-paper/
Current data not agreeing with what AGW calls for.http://patriotpost.us/opinion/34748

Salvatore,
Mostly you do not understand the significance of the things you are listing, so probably don’t understand whether they are fundamental to the greenhouse effect or not. I’m not going to cover the stuff with links, but here are brief comments on the others.

In addition past historical climatic data shows the climate change that has taken place over the past 150 years is nothing special or unprecedented, and has been exceeded many times over in similar periods of time in the historical climatic record. I have yet to see data showing otherwise.

Sure, the climate has made much bigger changes in the far historical past than anything we will see in the next few hundred years, even if you guys will not let the rest of us stop it.
The thing that is unique about the current AGW changes is the speed at which they are taking place – decades to a couple of centuries instead of many thousand years.
And your logic is faulty. The fact such changes have taken place before in no way disproves that they can be taking place now. In fact it probably adds extra credence, would you not say?

Data has also shown CO2 has always been a lagging indicator not a leading indicator. It does not lead the temperature change. If it does I have yet to see data confirming this.

There is a feedback here. Warming can cause CO2 release and the additional CO2 can then cause further warming. So CO2 can both lag and lead warming.
The logic flaw is that of false dichotemy – leading and lagging are not mutually exclusive choices. You can have CO2 both leading and lagging warming.

SOME ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES AND OTHER MAJOR WRONG CALLS.

Too vague to comment on.

GREATER ZONAL ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION -WRONG

Too vague to comment on.

TROPICAL HOT SPOT – WRONG

Tropical hot spot is not a fundamental aspect of greenhouse gas warming. Such a hot spot would be predicted too if the earth’s orbit changed and more warmth came directly from the sun. So irrelevant.

EL NINO MORE OF -WRONG

You are surely making this one up. I have never seen a claim before that AGW will cause more (or longer) El Ninos and therefore fewer (or shorter) La Ninas. The ENSO phase is regarded as random at present, though someone may discover enough about it to be able to predict it better in the future.
What is true is that an El Nino event causes surfaces temperatures to rise in phase with the El Nino, independent of any additional AGW effect. Generally there is a 4 month lag between the El Nino “marker” Nino 3.4 area temperatures and 12-month smoother global average temperatures. We are about to see whether this is true with the current El Nino. Currently the expectation is it will be fairly mild, but will last at least until the end of summer. However, it could last until the end of the year and become stronger, in which case hold on to your hats – you are going to need them to fend off global temperature rises of up to 0.2 degrees C.

GLOBAL TEMPERATURE TREND TO RISE- WRONG

See C&W kriging graph above. Just as valid a representation as the RSS graph. All should be regarded only as indicative of real temperature whereas here the RSS graph is treated as gospel and all others rejected.

LESSENING OF OLR EARTH VIA SPACE -WRONG? I have a study showing this to be so.

There’s nothing about AGW which says temperatures have to go up everywhere – only that the global average has to go up. Nor does AGW science make predictions about the Antarctic sea ice area. These predictions come from guys who wish to challenge AGW and decide to say things like “AGW should mean warmer Antarctic and therefore a smaller extent or area of sea ice”. So this is pretty irrelevant.
Sea ice is not much to worry about as the sea level does not rise when it melts. However, land ice is much more concerning e.g ice on Greenland, West and East Antarctica would cause 6m, 7m and 60m (from memory) sea level rises if it all melted – which it won’t in the time we are talking about.
The Antarctic is warming slightly. The East Antarctic ice sheet is stable. It is melting faster but the warming produces more snow on top too, so the mass of it is pretty constant.
The West Antarctic ice sheet is starting to melt and lose mass which is not balanced by more snow.
The Antarctic sea is is growing in area, but probably because a) fresh water from West Antarctic melting freezes at a higher temperature than good old sea salt water b) offshore breezes fan out the ice, giving it a bigger area but not much more volume.

Again, this is not a fundamental part of AGW. There is a plausible argument for it which goes that higher temperatures will allow more water to evaporate, putting more energy in the atmosphere. But this is all a bit crude. So it’s not logical to say no increased hurricanes = no AGW.
There is some evidence of increased frequency of very heavy rainfall.

STRATOSPHERIC COOLING- ?? because lack of major volcanic activity and less ozone due to low solar activity can account for this. In addition water vapor concentrations decreasing.

No. Variations in sunlight can’t explain both the surface and stratospheric temperatures generally moving in opposite directions, which is what has been happening for quite a while now. Stratospheric cooling is a fundamental signature of AGW.http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Cooling_Stratosphere.gif
And again your logic is faulty. The point is that ongoing stratospheric cooling is happening and is also expected if AGW is real. Only a lack of stratospheric cooling could cast doubt on AGW.

WATER VAPOR IN ATMOSPHERE INCREASING- WRONG- all of the latest data shows water vapor to be on the decrease.

AEROSOL IMPACT- WRONG- May be less then a cooling agent then expected, meaning CO2 is less then a warming agent then expected.

The phrase “may be” includes a large degree of uncertainty. “May not be” is also a possibility. Some of these things are not easy to measure. That’s just the way it is. If you cannot measure it accurately you cannot use it to cast doubt on AGW.

OCEAN HEAT CONTENT TO RISE- WRONG – this has leveled off post 2005 or so. Levels now much below model projections.

Climate Pete says:On looking at it again the drought graph was not the one intended because it does not show the change.
Oh, well then you’d better cherry-pick another one from your confirmation bias file.
And:Salvatore,
Mostly you do not understand the significance of the things you are listing, so probably don’t understand whether they are fundamental to the greenhouse effect or not.
After that insufferable, ad hominem statement/attack, I would like to see “Climate Pete” post his own CV.

CV
– Researching for a PhD in physics (not climate or atmospheric physics related) at Imperial College London at the age of 60 after a career in IT.
– Keen interest in AGW and energy for about 5 years which motivated me to do the PhD research in the first place
– Among other courses have recently attended an atmospheric physics course (not part of the PhD)
– Attend as many of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Energy Futures Lab seminars as I can.
– Friends with Jo Haigh and Arnaud Czaja.

Climate Pete says:CV
– Researching for a PhD in physics
Hey, me too!
And:– Keen interest in AGW and energy for about 5 years
Same here! What are the odds, eh? The only difference is that I’ve been immersed in this subject for twenty years, ever since global warming took a short jump in ’97, and my working carreer was highly technical and weather related.
And:– Among other courses have recently attended an atmospheric physics course
Once again, a truly amazing coincidence! And you took “an atmospheric physics course”. Take another one. Can’t hurt. Might help.
And:– Attend as many of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Energy Futures Lab seminars as I can.
You got me there. I haven’t been spoon-fed Grantham’s propaganda like you have.

Gavin Schmidt — I Got The Data In Me
(most sorry Kiki Dee
I got no troubles at NASA
I’m a rocket nothing can stop
Survival’s always the first law
And I’m in with those at the top
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
The Progressive Alliance
And it New Age Science
Say I got the data in me
I work in the mists and the fogs
By methods that none can review
To hide like a fox from the dogs
The premise of all that I do
The thermometers all want skilling
If their readings are not alarming
As the early ones all need chilling
So the later ones all need warming
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
Protagoras said
What Nietzsche read
So I got the data in me
An apple
In a garden hangs
From the lowest branch of a tree
Why reach for anything higher
It fills my every desire
I got the devil —
I got the devil —
I got the devil in me
Eugene WR Gallun

Man is the measure
Of all things that be
Friedrich Nietzsche read
What Protagoras said
So I got the data in me
In a garden hangs an apple
From the lowest branch of a tree
Why reach for anything higher
It fills my every desire
I got the devil —
I got the devil —
I got the devil in me
Eugene WR Gallun

Climate Pete says:There’s nothing about AGW which says temperatures have to go up everywhere
No, but it says global temperatures have to go up, and for many years they haven’t. Sorry about your Belief, Pete. You say:The thing that is unique about the current AGW changes is the speed at which they are taking place
Climate Pete’s mind is closed tighter than a submarine hatch. But for readers with an open mind, let me repeat:There are no measurements of AGW.
Therefore, “AGW changes” is meaningless speculation. With no measurements, no one knows the “speed” of any changes — or whether there are any changes. Or whether AGW exists, for that matter.
And: Nor does AGW science make predictions about the Antarctic sea ice area.
Nor about Arctic ice. But CP and his crowd make those predictions all the time.
‘Climate Pete’ still doesn’t understand that there are no verifiable, testable measurements quantifying AGW. Thus, AGW is merely a conjecture. If it exists (and I think it does) it must be so minuscule that no one has been able to measure it, despite decades of searching. Therefore, AGW can be completely disregarded as an insignificant, 3rd-order forcing. It just does not matter at all.
As for water vapor, we’ve been over all this many times before. Specific humidity has been declining for decades:https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/water_vapor_trend.png
Relative humidity has also been declining:http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericRelativeHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
And as Dr. Roy Spencer shows, sea surface temperatures are flat:http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/TMI-SST-MEI-adj-vs-CMIP5-20N-20S-thru-2015.png
Next, ‘Climate Pete’ purports to show that ocean heat content is rising. But that is flatly contradicted by real world ARGO data:http://tumetuestumefaisdubien1.sweb.cz/ARGO-sea-temperature-max-max.PNG
C. Pete makes other claims. He cherry-picks certain atmospheric layers to try and show global warming. But as the rest of us know — and as many others including the recent head of the IPCC and arch Warmist Dr. Phil Jones have admitted — global warming stopped many years ago. Climate Pete’s cherry-picking is just his confirmation bias at work. It isn’t reality.
Now, “Climate Pete”, let’s see that CV of yours, if you’ve got one. Are we discussing this article with someone educated in the hard sciences? Or are you just another alarmist lemming who gets his talking points from a thinly-trafficked blog run by a neo-Nazi? Post your CV, Pete. If you have one. Make it verifiable for a change. Because when we try to verify your other links, we see that they’re just dog-whistle links for CAGW True Believers.

dbstealey
CV is posted above as a reply to the first request for it. I’m in the CMTH department and my surname is not Fox. Look me up in the information on the college web site, send me an email and I’ll verify my identity.

[AGW] says global temperatures have to go up, and for many years they haven’t.

I keep posting graphs on this, some from other sources and some from my spreadsheets which say the best evidence is that temperatures have continued to go up slowly over the last 20 years and went up pretty fast before that. You ignore them. The point is not that one graph is right and another wrong, but that the temperature signal is NOISY, with a small AGW SIGNAL. It’s highly likely the signal is not going to show up in graphs from every temperature data set, particularly over a short period such as 20 years of RSS data.
I suggest you read Nate Silver’s book “The signal and the noise” .
You post only the RSS LTL temperature graph or a HadCRUT4 graph which omits a number of Arctic temperatures and therefore misses Arctic warming and is therefore clearly wrong. See http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.2297/pdf for details. This seems to be a deliberate policy by the data providers – they want to provide only high quality data at grid points or none at all, leaving the user to fill in missing data according to the use which will be made of the output.
There are a number of ways of completing the HadCRUT4 data set before averaging it, but completed it must be. Cowtan and Way offer a kriged version (same technique as GISTEMP) and a hybrid version based on satellite snapshots. Nick Stokes on Moyhu has done an analysis based on just filling missing points with the mean temperature for that lattitude which he says provides very similar global averages to either Cowtan and Way method.
The one thing you cannot do is add up the HadCRUT4 gridded data and divide by the number of grid points, because that is equivalent to replacing missing points with the average temperature of those points which are provided. Yet that is what happens in graphs time and time again.
Then you just ignore graphs from other temperature data sets as if they did not exist and claim no warming, without stating the uncertainty in the overall conclusion or really looking for the best statement that can be made which would have to take into account both surface and LTL temperature data sets.

There are no measurements of AGW.

Just you saying something does not make it true. Here are some of the measurements that come to mind. Doubtless you could Google a more complete list if you wanted to :-
– CO2 levels because for over 100 years you have been able to do an approximate calculation of eventual temperature rises from just this single figure.
– Rise in average global surface temperatures over time (not just the last 20 years)
– Upper stratospheric cooling
– Estimates of radiative forcing (energy imbalance)
– Ocean heat contents (not just the first 10 or 100m either, but down as far as the measurements allow).
– Changes in sea level rise rate (i.e. discounting the base rise before AGW took hold)

‘Climate Pete’ still doesn’t understand that there are no verifiable, testable measurements quantifying AGW. Thus, AGW is merely a conjecture. If it exists (and I think it does) it must be so minuscule that no one has been able to measure it, despite decades of searching. Therefore, AGW can be completely disregarded as an insignificant, 3rd-order forcing. It just does not matter at all.

I’ve given you five indicators above plus CO2, and there are plenty of measurements to support each of those. But the weather signal creates a lot of noise over quite long periods of time and the short-term AGW signal is weaker, so either you have to do a very careful analysis over a short period, or you have to look over longer periods. And sure, there is no black and white proof of either “AGW is real” or “AGW is not happening at all”. The proof is statistical in nature, which means that you have to put a probability on it somewhere on the line.
The mistake you make is this. The data gives a 95% probability to the statement “AGW is real and caused by human CO2 emissions”. You think that means because it is not certain so you can say “there is no AGW”. But the only statement you can actually make is “There is a 5% chance there is no AGW”. So it is a balance of probabilities thing. That’s why you need to know more rather than less about the big picture to get the judgement right.

Specific humidity has been declining for decades:

As for specific humidity, it’s not one of the areas I’ve researched on the web. But I can tell you where the flaw is in your approach. Specific humidity dictates how much greenhouse warming water vapour is responsible for. But this warming will come mainly from the hot low lattitude regions and hardly at all from the poles. So a graph of average global humidity isn’t going to tell you what you need to know. You need something which is much more skewed to the equator to work out the contribution of any change to water vapour to the overall radiative forcing.
Similarly most of the additional evaporation caused by AGW will be close to the equator and hardly at all at the poles, so you need the same skew of relative humidity data to draw conclusions.

Models vs sea surface temperatures

Your approach is too superificial. Models don’t stay in phase with actual ENSO (El Nino) phase, so cannot do a good job of predicting sea surface temperatures in the short term. If you control for that by selecting model runs which match ENSO phase or adjust actual sea surface temperatures to eliminate the effect of ENSO-caused temperature variations then you get a reasonable fit of models versus adjusted actuals. If you don’t understand why this is the right approach then why not read Nate Silver’s book.

Next, ‘Climate Pete’ purports to show that ocean heat content is rising. But that is flatly contradicted by real world ARGO data:

The oceans have an average depth of 2km. The graphs you have displayed from the ARGO data are for the surface of the sea – it says so very clearly at the top of your graphs. So whether the ARGO data actually contradicts my statement we certainly won’t find out from my graphs.
What happened here is symptomatic, of course. You accept evidence for your viewpoint as gospel whether it is high quality or relevant or not, then completely ignore evidence for AGW , as has been the case with the various temperature charts I have put up. No recognition that they have been displayed, no attempt to explain why you think your data is better.

Climate Pete says:
I attend… as many of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Energy Futures Lab seminars as I can.
Ah. You’re an acolyte of someone who has a talent for guessing the markets correctly (and who was/is heavily invested in fossil fuels). But Jeremy Grantham is a scientific illiterate, so if you’re proud of learning from someone like that, you shouldn’t be.
Grantham is very liberal in spreading his money around universities and ‘think tanks’. As Upton Sinclair wrote:It is difficult to make a man understand something when his livelihood depends on not understanding it.
Next you say:I’ve given you five indicators above plus CO2
And I have solidly refuted every one of them, to the point that you’ve got nothing left but your misinformation. For just one example you say:The oceans have an average depth of 2km. The graphs you have displayed from the ARGO data are for the surface of the sea
The ARGO graph I posted was done to debunk your nonsense that oceans are warming more than usual since the LIA. ARGO is real world, empirical data. Since you are nitpicking everything, here is a 0 – 2000 metre ARGO map that shows recent, deep ocean COOLING:https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/trend-ocean-0to2000m-temps-argo-2005-2012.jpg
Next:As for specific humidity, it’s not one of the areas I’ve researched on the web.
I posted real world data showing that both relative humidity and specific humidity have been declining for decades. That debunks the misinformation you posted. But as usual you ignored it, because your own misinformation feeds your confirmation bias. But by all means, keep ‘researching on the web’. Try Wikipedia, I hear you can’t go wrong there.
Next:You post only the RSS LTL temperature graph or a HadCRUT4 graph
Wrong again. I have posted numerous graphs from many different sources, showing that global warming has stopped. Many of your alarmist pals now admit that fact, including Dr. Phil Jones. Go argue with him if you don’t like what Planet Earth is clearly telling us.
Next, you emit:The data gives a 95% probability to the statement “AGW is real and caused by human CO2 emissions”.
That is nonsense. I challenge you to post testable measurements explicitly quantifying the fraction of global warming attributable to human emissions. If you do, you will be the first, and on the short list for a Nobel Prize.
But of course, you can’t. You have no such measurements, because they do not exist. Your cut and pasted quote above is a falsifed prediction, promoted by the IPCC which — as global T refuses to do as they incessantly predict — has doubeld down in every assessment report, raising their opinion of AGW as the cause of (non-existent) global warming.
But that is ALL it is: an opinion that has been bought and paid for by governments craving new carbon taxes. It is hard to understand how anyone with the least bit of formal education can be that gullible and credulous. It is clear that you have never seriously asked yourself: Cui bono?
Next:I keep posting graphs on this, some from other sources and some from my spreadsheets which say the best evidence is that temperatures have continued to go up slowly over the last 20 years
Wrong as usual. Even Dr. Pachauri, recent head of the UN/IPCC, now admits that global warming has stopped. Go argue with him if you don’t like what the real world is telling us.
Finally, you assert:What happened here is symptomatic, of course. You accept evidence for your viewpoint as gospel whether it is high quality or relevant or not, then completely ignore evidence for AGW
As they say, there is no fool like an educated fool. Your psychological projection, and the DK symptoms you exhibit in that statement are yours alone.
Listen up, “Climate” Pete:
In science, DATA IS ESSENTIAL. Measurements are data. But…There are no measurements of man-made global warming.
AGW may exist. I think it does. But despite decades of searching by highly trained scientists and metrologists using the most advanced instrumentation, there are still no measurements quantifying AGW. There are only opinions; conjectures. Guesstimates.
If there were testable, verifiable measurements quantifying AGW, and if CO2 had the claimed effect, then we would know the climate sensitivity number with enough precision to accurately predict ∆global T. But the sensitivity guesstimates range from more than 6ºC, down to zero (Miskolczi et al), and everything in between, depending on who you ask.
Therefore, AGW must ipso facto be so minuscule that it can be disregarded and ignored. It is merely a tiny, 3rd-order forcing that simply does not matter. That is why, despite the steady rise in CO2, global temperatures are the same now as they were almost twenty years ago: CO2 simply does not have the claimed effect.
‘Climate Pete’, an honest scientist is a skeptic, first and foremost. But it is clear that you have swallowed the “dangerous man-made global warming” narrative, despite the obvious fact that there is nothing unusual or unprecedented happening. It is clearly your religious belief, based on your assurance that we are headed to hell in a handbasket. You just want to BELIEVE in your CO2=CAGW fantasy, even though it does not stand up to even the mildest scrutiny.

Dr. Gavin Schmidt has probably just discovered discovered something important – You can fool some of the people all the time. You can fool all of the people some of the time. You cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

dbstealey,
You will find I am a very fast learner, and can read too.
You really must think not only me, but also all the readers here were born yesterday. You put up this pretty coloured graph (which has changes in ocean temperature 0-2000m from 2005 to 2012). Then you claim it shows ocean cooling. I guess you are hoping everyone just looks at the colours and accepts your word for it.https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/trend-ocean-0to2000m-temps-argo-2005-2012.jpg
Unfortunately for you, the graph title actually contains a definitive figure for the average ocean temperature rise, excluding land and polar seas.
In this case it says “ocean 0.02 degrees C per decade”. For the benefit of anyone reading this, a positive number shows warming and a negative number shows cooling.
So dbstealey’s graph which he claims shows cooling actually shows warming.
What have you to say, dbstealey? Were you the one born yesterday, or were you hoping everyone else was?

Exercise for the student. At that ocean heating rate, how long will it take the oceans to boil? Now, for extra credit, speculate on what else may happen to energy balance and flows in the meantime?
================

The beef is this.
For the same temperature rise the oceans (which are up to about 4km deep) can retain around 4,000 times as much heat as the atmosphere – maybe 2,000 times down to 2000m only though this is going to be an underestimate. So 0.02 degrees C ocean warming down to 2km equates to 40 degrees C atmospheric warming in terms of the heat. Normally at least 95% of excess AGW heat goes into the ocean, probably more recently at least 99%. So 0.02 degrees C per decade ocean temperature rise is equivalent to around 0.4 degrees C per decade of atmospheric warming. That is 4 degrees C per century.
So the ocean have a huge multiplier in terms of heat energy compared to the atmosphere, and it doesn’t do to take it lightly. There is very much a case for dbstealey to answer with even such a small degree of ocean warming.

Pete, I explained that the map showed “recent” cooling, which it does. You referred to decadal changes, which are so minuscule that they’re within error bars.
philincalifornia is right when he notes that science isn’t your calling. You wrote above that you get your sciency info from stuff you’ve “researched on the web.” Try Wikipedia, I hear they’ve got lots of climate information for folks like you.

Climate Pete didn’t answer kim’s question.
Instead he said this:Normally at least 95% of excess AGW heat goes into the ocean, probably more recently at least 99%. So 0.02 degrees C per decade ocean temperature rise is equivalent to around 0.4 degrees C per decade of atmospheric warming. That is 4 degrees C per century.
The first sentence is a baseless assertion. “Climate Pete” has never responded to may question, asking him to produce testable measurements quantifying AGW. So of course he cannot make credible assertions like “95%” or “99%”.
And: “normally”?? There is nothing abnormal happening! Nothing unusual, and nothing unprecedented is happening. The climate Null Hypothesis has never been falsified.
The second “Climate Pete” sentence is falsified by the global temperature record. If it was true, global T would have risen by 0.8ºC — as much as in the preceding 150 years.
It hasn’t. Instead, global warming has stopped.
Now “Climate” Pete will emit more nonsense, explaining why empirical evidence doesn’t count. Maybe he’ll claim that the heat is “hiding” somewhere. Or something. Whatever the current alarmist talking points are.
Anything, except admitting that the CO2=CAGW conjecture has been thoroughly debunked by the only Authority that matters: Planet Earth.

Jeremy Grantham is a scientific illiterate, so if you’re proud of learning from someone like that, you shouldn’t be.

Jeremy Grantham does not supply the science, and would not pretend to be a scientist. He supplies some of the funding. He is a businessman.
The science comes from climate experts such as my friend Jo Haigh who is one of the two co-directors. She has impeccable climate science qualifications, including a spell as president of the Royal Meteorological Society of which she is now a vice president. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society which means her contribution has been recognised outside climate science circles as well as inside. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Haigh.
And the key point about climate scientists of such an era is that they did a lot of very good but unpopularised work in the1970’s and 80’s, when the field was a quiet backwater for dedicated researchers who wanted only to find out as much as possible as to how the atmosphere, climate and weather worked. The US conservative politicisation of climate science came later, once Mann had published the Hockey Stick paper in 1998.
Manabe and Strickler’s 1964 paper – http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/sm6401.pdf – provided a very good working calculation of the atmosphere temperatures with height and showed you could only get it right if you take into account both greenhouse effects and surface heat convection (which stops at the tropopause). Since this was pre-conservative politicisition of the area, the basic greenhouse gas theory was established and confirmed before IPCC, Michael Mann or Heartland Institute. And such a solid base of climate science is still not understood by guys such as you, yet contains just about all the theory and information needed to refute your claims above. And it is old old old.

If it’s gone deep it’s not coming out ’til the surface cools; if it’s been re-radiated, it’s gone. In either case, no catastrophe, except for cooling ones.
I’m happy to accept the mild warming of AGW which seems to be the expression of all of the physics, known and unknown, and of course, the great greening.
Why can’t you accept it and glory in it? Is it fear? Guilt? Surely not greed or lust for power, I would not so suggest, though surely there are some with those weaknesses.
Increasing carbon dioxide is a boon to the whole biome. It is possibly the most necessary substance on Earth that the Earth is incapable of sustaining an adequate atmospheric concentration for. And you would try to abolish and and derogate it as pollution. Kiddo, that’s sick.
========

‘Climate’ Pete says:Jeremy Grantham does not supply the science, and would not pretend to be a scientist. He supplies some of the funding to promote the alarmist narrative.
There. ^Fixed it^ for you. Grantham cares nothing about science, or he would be a skeptic.
Next, you say M&S “get it right”. That’s utter nonsense. No one was able to predict the current 12 – 18 year long stasis in global T. No one ‘got it right’.
Finally, your comment “pre-conservative politicisition of the area, the basic greenhouse gas theory was established and confirmed before IPCC, Michael Mann or Heartland Institute” makes you a parody of the wild-eyed alarmist nuts that occasionally show up here. You mntioned Heartland, but you forgot the Koch Brothers. You’re slipping.
But you did manage to throw in: US conservative politicisation of climate science came later, once Mann had published the Hockey Stick paper in 1998.
Are you that clueless? MBH97/98 were fatally flawed. The IPCC can no longer publish Mann’s original ‘Hokey Stick’ chart. There aren’t many journals that force the author to publish a Corregendum admitting his methodology was nonsense, but Michael Mann made the cut. And you can bet that if anyone else but Mann himself had written the correction, it would have been much worse, and more to the point. Now, would you like to discuss Mann’s Tiljander proxy?
The fact that you have dragged politics into a science discussion says it all. This is politics to you.
Finally, you cite your pal as having “impeccable credentials”. In the UK it is who you know over what you know. Name someone who was president of the Royal Meteorological Society in the past couple of decades who got there based on merit, and not on who they knew. Contrast that with the recent head of M.I.T.’s atmospheric sciences department, who has published twenty dozen peer reviewed papers on the climate — and who rejects your bogus climate alarmism politcs.
You stray into politics because you have decisively lost the scientific argument. You cannot even quantify AGW, yet you write as if it is an established fact. I have repeatedly challenged you to post testable, verifiable measurements, explicitly quantifying the fraction of global warming attributable to human emissions. You avoid that like the plague, for the simple reason that no one has ever produced such measurements.
And without measurements, your entire CO2=CAGW conjecture is nothing more than an opinion.
Climate Pete, this is a site for scientific skeptics. Skeptics are the only honest kind of scientists. But I haven’t see one word of skepticism from you about your “dangerous man-made global warming” beliefs since you started posting. As Prof Richard Feynman warned: you are the easiest person to fool.
But maybe you want to fool yourself because the alternative is terrifying to you: you would find out that your cherished belief system is built not on testable science, but on a political narrative.
Either that, or you’re on Grantham’s payroll. Oh, well. It pays the bills, right?
So, knowing his agenda, do you:
1) Tell him there are no measurements of AGW, thus it is an unproven conjecture
2) Sell your soul

Philip Finck,
Doesn’t it seem strange to you that the IPCC — which absolutely LOVED Mann’s original chart — no longer uses it?
Mann’s chart was arresting. It was perfect for its intended use: alarming the public. There has never been a better, more effective visual tool available to the IPCC. But they stopped using it.
Why would they cease publishing it? Now, they use much inferior spaghetti charts which are merely confusing, and not nearly as scary.
If you’ve followed the Mann saga at all, you know the answer: Mann’s chart was based on bogus proxies. Mann has an M.O. on that. He cherry-picks his proxies, and rejects those that don’t support his agenda. Often, he rejects the majority of available proxies.
Take Mann’s Tiljander proxy. Ms. Tiljander informed him before he published that she had discovered that the lake sediments had been overturned due to construction decades before, thus as a climate proxy they were no good. But Mann used them anyway because the upside-down, corrupted proxy gave him the hockey stick shape he craved.
That’s your HE-RO. The guy has no ethics, which is typical of the clique of climate alarmist of scientists that Mann leads. Mann also controls the climate peer review system, as proven in the Climategate emails. But you try to defend a reporobate like that. Why?

Perfect example of the corruption. MBH 98&99 should have long since been retracted. So called subsequent confirmatory studies need either split bark bristlecone or upside down varves to demonstrate the hockey stick.
Look at this closely, pal; you should be appalled.
==============

What I thought was particularly smooth and subtle was the way he presented one series with split bark, and another with flipped varves, but none with neither. Quite deliberate. Now, you deliberate.
He stumbled over a crook’t stick of credulousness which is now whackin’ the both of ye.
====================

dbstealey
Here are the result from the Moyhu interactive temperature viewerhttp://www.moyhu.blogspot.com.au/p/temperature-trend-viewer.html
which is kept up to data by Nick Stokes. The Wood for Trees viewer seems to have no further development on it and is missing the BEST land and ocean data and the new UAH 6 data set (which dbstealey no doubt was hoping would give lower 20 year trends than the old one).
All 20 year land and ocean trends from April 1995 to April 2015
UAH6 beta – 0.232°C/Century; CI from -0.764 to 1.227
RSS – 0.272°C/Century; CI from -0.660 to 1.204;
Cowtan & Way with kriging -1.456°C/Century; CI from 0.931 to 1.981;
GISTemp – 1.205°C/Century; CI from 0.713 to 1.697;
BEST – 1.246°C/Century; CI from 0.705 to 1.786;
HadCRUT4 – 1.129°C/Century; CI from 0.580 to 1.678; (but this is incomplete and should be replaced by C&W kriging or hybrid).
All the datasets show an average warming trend. The satellite dataset confidence intervals span zero, but the upper confidence limits are 1.227 and 1.204, so they do not exclude a warming trend of more than 1 degrees C per century. Bear in mind that the lower tropospheric temperature from the satellites covers a significant band of heights, so is not the same reading as the surface temperature. It is the surface temperature which causes problems for humans with AGW.
Meanwhile all the average trend values for the surface temperature datasets are all above 1 degree C per century, and the confidence intervals fall within the confidence intervals of the satellite datasets.
This is the skeptical scientist picture – look at all the evidence and reach a conclusion. And the conclusion from it is that 20 year warming is highly likely. Because this is what the overall picture of trends is telling us. We can even say that there is about 1/3 chance that there has been no warming or cooling just in the two satellite datasets alone, because zero trend comes about 1/2 sigma into the confidence interval.
By contrast DBStealey would ignore all but the RSS dataset and still try to claim no warming over 20 years. This is a case where the conclusion came first and the justification comes second, and includes a great deal of cherry picking about which data and bounds are regarded as sound and which are not. It smacks very much of bias rather than scientific skepticism.

Are you that clueless? MBH97/98 were fatally flawed. The IPCC can no longer publish Mann’s original ‘Hokey Stick’ chart. There aren’t many journals that force the author to publish a Corrigendum admitting his methodology was nonsense, but Michael Mann made the cut.

The corrigendum related only the MBH98 supplementary material. What did the corrigendum have to say about the actual paper and results?“dbstealey said

Are you that clueless? MBH97/98 were fatally flawed. The IPCC can no longer publish Mann’s original ‘Hokey Stick’ chart. There aren’t many journals that force the author to publish a Corrigendum admitting his methodology was nonsense, but Michael Mann made the cut.

The corrigendum related only the MBH98 supplementary material. What did the corrigendum have to say about the actual paper and results?“None of these errors affect our previously published results (1)”http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/MBH98-corrigendum04.pdf
where (1) points to MBH98.
Add to that that dbstealey has never even admitted that Mann’s results were confirmed by later studies. A true skeptic would have noted that for all to see and, if still convinced MBH was flawed would have explained why. In fact a good scientists would have written a paper explaining the flaw and what the correct results are, then submitted it for publication. The fact there is no such paper published says that Mann’s results should stand, since they have been corroborated.
The lack of noting confirmatory later results for MBH98 proves that dbstealey is not a skeptical scientist – just biased.
Now there is yet another piece of disinformation come to light. dbstealey says the IPCC AR5 no longer can publish Mann’s hockey stick graph.
Of course they would not be publishing the original any more because the results have been corroborated and enhanced by others, so a better chart is what they should be publishing. And here it is, straight from the AR5 WG1 Technical Summary paper.http://www.ipcc.ch/report/graphics/index.php?t=Assessment%20Reports&r=AR5%20-%20WG1&f=Technical%20Summary
And now we come to the infamous chart discussed above.https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/trend-ocean-0to2000m-temps-argo-2005-2012.jpg?w=700
The question dbstealey has to answer to retain any credibility with the audience here is :-
“Did he know when he claimed it showed cooling, that, in fact, it showed warming? Or did he want it to show cooling, so therefore assumed it did, without checking?”
My money is on the second on this. The first is too risky.
Now, since I had already put up the NOAA chart showing heat going into the oceans up to 2000m, the correct thing for a true skeptic would have been to look for a third source of information before making up his mind on ocean cooling. Does he do this? No he doesn’t. He just ignores the NOAA chart because it does not say what he wants it to say, and goes solely with his chart. Big mistake in this case.
So that is yet another piece of information that dbstealey is not a skeptical scientists, but just shows bias – failure to look at the evidence is not a sign of a true skeptic.

Gad, Pete. Belief in the Piltdown Mann’s Crook’t Stick with its inherent myth of attribution is hazardous. It is iconic, and false.
Also, go check out Bob Tisdale’s examination of the latest ocean heat content paper. You might learn a little.
=====================

Climate Pete says:Add to that that dbstealey has never even admitted that Mann’s results were confirmed by later studies.
Mann falsely attempted to erase the MWP and the LIA. If ‘Climate Pete’ actually believes that those events did not happen, or were “confirmed” by anything in the real world, he’s not only a lunatic, but he contradicts decades of research.
I note that ‘Climate Pete’ also doesn’t dare to try and defend Mann’s use of the upside-down Tilajander proxy. That was so thoroughly bogus and dishonest that Michael Mann’s reputation has never recovered. His colleagues are still snickering behind his back about that one.
‘Climate Pete’ continues to dig his deep hole even deeper, trying to ‘explain’ why the IPCC has stopped publishing Mann’s discredited chart:Of course they would not be publishing the original any more because…&blah, blah, etc.
I fully explained what happened in my comment above: 5/24 @4:54 pm. The IPCC LOVED Mann’s chart, repeatedly publishing it. Then when it was debunked, they suddenly stopped using it.
I am embarrassed when someone makes a major fool out of himself. ‘Climate Pete’ should at least argue things that are disputable to some degree. The fact that the IPCC cannot use Mann’s chart any more is such a weak argument that it puts ‘Climate Pete’ into the ‘Seekers’ category explained by Leon Festinger.

One of my favorite jokes with moshe is that I tell him that once upon a time I had this whole climate thing figured out, but have since forgotten, so you have to read the blogs. You have a decade of Climate Audit to catch up with.
It’s destruction, in massive detail, of the hockey sticks; it’s a shambles.
========================

The recent weblog post, and comments, at And Then There’s Physics [ATTP]https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/watt-about-rogers-questions/#comment-56471
illustrates a remarkable lack of understanding of the alternative approach we have proposed to diagnose and monitor global warming.
Our approach was presented, for example, at Climate Etc inhttp://judithcurry.com/2014/04/28/an-alternative-metric-to-assess-global-warming/
At the end of the set of comments between me and the anonymous weblog host at ATTP, the remarkable statement was made by that person
“I also don’t think that the term forcing in climate science is quite equivalent to a force in physics.”https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/watt-about-rogers-questions/#comment-56598
The piling on of the lack of understanding of the physics (and the vitriol) by commenters on ATTP, including the host, accelerated towards the end of the exchange of comments (and continues after I left it). Gavin Schmidt presented the first comment (which avoided answering the question posed, then promptly disappeared from the debate). As with the weblog Skeptical Science, these weblogs are simple partisan attack websites with a veneer of science.
The host of ATTP hides behind being anonymous to hurl personal attacks. For a short time I thought perhaps the climate tribal wars were not going to occur at ATTP. However, I was wrong. I am going to forgo going back onto that poorly run, biased weblog.
On WUWT in this comment, however, I want make it very clear and document what is meant in physics by the term “radiative forcing” and how we have used that fundamental concept in proposing our alternative approach to assess global warming.
The IPCC defines the most fundamental form of radiative forcing (RF), in a form they do NOT use, as
“Alternative definitions of RF have been developed, each with its own advantages and limitations. The instantaneous RF refers to an instantaneous change in net (down minus up) radiative flux (shortwave plus longwave; in W m–2) due to an imposed change. “
[https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment -report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf
That is the definition that we used.
However, the IPCC has adopted a variant which is
“In both the Third Assessment Report (TAR) and AR4, the term radiative forcing (RF, also called stratospherically adjusted RF, as distinct from instantaneous RF) was defined as the change in net irradiance at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, while holding surface and tropospheric temperatures and state variables such as water vapour and cloud cover fixed at the unperturbed values . RF is generally more indicative of the surface and tropospheric temperature responses than instantaneous RF, especially for agents such as carbon dioxide (CO2) or ozone (O3) change that substantially alter stratospheric temperatures. To be consistent with TAR and AR4, RF is hereafter taken to mean the stratospherically adjusted RF.”
They adopt this approach because the
“Instantaneous RF or RF is not an accurate indicator of the temperature response for all forcing agents…”
There is a lot more discussion of this subject in the IPCC report. However, a clear distinction exists between what we have proposed and what the IPCC uses, which was ignored at ATTP.
At ATTP they apparently are deliberately obfuscating or they really do not understand basic physics regarding this distinction. In past exchanges with Gavin Schmidt, he seemed to understand the distinction, but than just ignored any value to what we are proposing. His comment at ATTP shows he continues to ignore the issue we have raised.
Our approach assesses the global top-of-the-atmosphere space-time integrated instantaneous RF which is the appropriate one to use in our radiative imbalance assessment. When we use the ocean heat stage to assess the top of the atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes, it is, of course, correct there is a lag if we are assessing the top of the atmosphere radiative fluxes based on the ocean heat content changes. We essentially eliminate this concern by averaging over space and over time periods (months to years and longer).
Also, in our estimates for the global average radiative forcings and feedbacks, we used the IPCC and related estimates [even with their different definition], as we are not aware of any other estimates. The space-time averaged instantaneous (for each time step in the models) radiative forcings and feedbacks can be extracted from the climate models, of course, but despite requests in the past from GISS, this was never provided. Gavin just tells me I should obtain them myself from their archived data [which would be fine if I were funded by someone to do this].
Our approach is described in the paper
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335. https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-247.pdf
which builds on the paper
Ellis et al. 1978: The annual variation in the global heat balance of the Earth. J. Geophys. Res., 83, 1958-1962. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/ellis-et-al-jgr-1978.pdf
See also
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/r-334.pdf
See also
Douglass and Knox, 2013: Ocean heat content and Earthʼs radiation imbalance. II. Relation to climate shifts. Physics Letters A Volume 376, Issue 14, 5 March 2012, Pages 1226–1229. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0375960112001600
Finally, as to where the questions are going with respect to ATTP and Gavin, they apparently find them too inconvenient.
ATTP wrote
“I can see no reason why Gavin would spend any time answering the questions. They’re – in my opinion – almost certainly not asked in good faith.”https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/watt-about-rogers-questions/#comment-56749
In other words, they do not really want to have an honest scientific discussion on the issues I have raised. Such is the sad state of climate science.
[Thank you. .mod]

Stonewalling has worked so well and so long for them that they can’t see the mortar dissolving between the rocks, and the rocks turning spongiform. It’s sad and troubling. What will become of them?
===================

Jeremy Grantham does not supply the science, and would not pretend to be a scientist. He supplies some of the funding to promote the alarmist narrative.
This statement is correct. Grantham Institute exists to promote the conclusions of mainstream climate science, confirmed by 97% of the climate expert. The fact that dbstealey chooses to substitute emotional words does not change anything.

..your comment “pre-conservative politicisition of the area, the basic greenhouse gas theory was established and confirmed before IPCC, Michael Mann or Heartland Institute” makes you a parody of the wild-eyed alarmist nuts that occasionally show up here. You mentioned Heartland, but you forgot the Koch Brothers. You’re slipping.
The Koch brothers try to work by proxy. They support a few tens of right-wing think tanks, all of whom quote the same handful of contrarian scientists in their publications.
The main reason you do not get more dissenters from the views propagated on WUWT are that they are hardly made to feel very welcome, as your diatribe above demonstrates.

…you cite your pal as having “impeccable credentials”. In the UK it is who you know over what you know. Name someone who was president of the Royal Meteorological Society in the past couple of decades who got there based on merit, and not on who they knew. Contrast that with the recent head of M.I.T.’s atmospheric sciences department, who has published twenty dozen peer reviewed papers on the climate — and who rejects your bogus climate alarmism politcs.
I guess since you know nothing of Jo’s research then you have to find some personal attack to make. This is hardly skeptical science – more like pushing an agenda.
Council officers in the RMS get elected by the members. If they know you and respect you then they will surely vote for you. But since they are all respected atmospheric scientists, then this is going to be the right way to go about it. The electors will have read research papers by those standing for election, and most will know them personally.
And Dick Lindzen is not head of the MIT EAPS department. The head is Robert van der Hilst, and he is an earth scientist, not a climate scientists. In fact Dick retired in 2013, so will not be head of a subgroup either.

You cannot even quantify AGW, yet you write as if it is an established fact. I have repeatedly challenged you to post testable, verifiable measurements, explicitly quantifying the fraction of global warming attributable to human emissions. You avoid that like the plague, for the simple reason that no one has ever produced such measurements.
And without measurements, your entire CO2=CAGW conjecture is nothing more than an opinion.

It doesn’t seem to be, judging by the amount of political “why don’t warmists believe us, why are warmists wrong” claptrap posted.
And there are some very significant pointers in your postings that you are agenda-driven and not science driven – such as the supposed OHC “cooling ” chart which actually showed warming, plus the suppression of the fact that MBH98 has been confirmed by subsequent result, and your misrepresentation of the corrigendum which you claim invalidated the paper and did no such thing.

Skeptics are the only honest kind of scientists.

That is very true.

But I haven’t see one word of skepticism from you about your “dangerous man-made global warming” beliefs since you started posting.

Your logical fallacy here is that skepticism = rejection of mainsteam climate science.
What you will have seen from me, which is not forthcoming from you, is an acknowledgement that there is evidence of a slowdown in warming since the huge El Nino in 1997/8, and that the RSS chart shows that. However, you have made no acknowledgement whatsoever that there are temperature series such as C&W which show significant warming since 1998. You have not been able to bring yourself to type “C&W” once. Nor have you even acknowledged you made a mistake with the ocean heat content chart.
So, given one of us (me) is looking around at both sides of the evidence and has taken the trouble to educate himself on atmospheric physics, and the other (you) is doing his best to avoid looking at the mainstream climate science evidence, which of us is more likely to reach the right conclusions?
The reasons I am convinced that AGW is real and should be mitigated are :-
1. I have sufficient training in general and atmospheric physics to know that the physical mechanism behind the greenhouse effect is good physics and has been since it was defined over 100 years ago.
2. There are a number of different sets of evidence that climate change is happening, varying from your ocean heat content chart, to the fact upper stratospheric temperatures are going down while surface temperatures are rising – a sure fingerprint of greenhouse warming.
The reason I reject your conclusions is that there is far too much cherry picking going on around here and far too many justifications here along the lines of “it’s obvious to me that there is no AGW, because one chart showed it. Why can’t everyone else ignore the mainstream climate science and IPCC charts too and just look at the data I am looking at?”

But maybe you want to fool yourself because the alternative is terrifying to you: you would find out that your cherished belief system is built not on testable science, but on a political narrative.

Certainly my acceptance of AGW is predicated on a belief in general physics and general physical laws and an understanding of the mathematical and statistical methods you must use in a high-noise low-signal field such as climate science. I assume you support my conclusion that the general laws of physics are not about to be disproved any time soon
Specifically I can think of two things which might well cause me to change my mind on AGW. One would be if someone suddenly found that the atmosphere (or maybe just CO2) is not as transparent to sunlight as we all had supposed, because that would mean that a reverse-greenhouse effect had a physical basis. The second would be if there was a convincing negative feedback effect measured which meant the greenhouse effect was necessarily limited in scope. Higher tropical temperatures leading to 20% more clouds would do it, for instance.
However, in the absence of either of these, the balance of evidence lies with the experts – not with those who have strong views but no qualifications and no desire to improve their knowledge through formal training.

Either that, or you’re on Grantham’s payroll. Oh, well. It pays the bills, right?
So, knowing his agenda, do you:
1) Tell him there are no measurements of AGW, thus it is an unproven conjecture
2) Sell your soul

I am in the fortunate position of having a reasonable pension to live off, and no necessity to earn more money. I can please myself as to what I choose to do.
My advice to you would be to enrol on one of the climate science MOOC freebie courses, because it would give you the perspective of mainstream climate science is actually saying which you clearly so sorely lack. Then you might be in a position to argue your viewpoint was based on considering all the evidence, and not just one side of it.

Saying that MBH 1998 is wrong is a fashionable meme among those who would rather AGW was not a fact. However, that does not mean the criticism is justified.
As far as I can see, the history is that Mann publishes in 1998. McItrick does an analysis in 2003 to see if he can cast any doubt on it and he and McIntyre make various derogatory comments on it, complaining that the PCA (principal component analysis) is not correct. Eventually in 2003 they get something published in “Energy and Environment” – the contrarians favourite journal.
Picking up from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
It turns out had McKitrick used a different convention with the same processing of the data then he would have obtained the same results as Mann.

“In the December 2004 AGU meeting Wahl and Ammann use their own code to replicate the MBH results and find them to be robust, even with modifications. They conclude the M&M criticism of the hockey stick graph were groundless.”
“In comments on MM05 made in October, Peter Huybers showed that McIntyre and McKitrick had omitted a critical step in calculating significance levels, and MBH98 had shown it correctly.[153] Though the disputed principal components analysis method would in theory have some effect, its influence on the amplitude of the final reconstruction was very small.”
“On 28 February 2006 Wahl & Ammann. Two more reconstructions were published, using different methodologies and supporting the main conclusions of MBH. Rosanne D’Arrigo, Rob Wilson and Gordon Jacoby suggested that medieval temperatures had been almost 0.7 °C cooler than the late 20th century but less homogenous, Osborn and Briffa found the spatial extent of recent warmth more significant than that during the medieval warm period. They were followed by a third reconstruction led by Gabriele C. Hegerl.”
“A National Research Council report…..concluded “with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries”, justified by consistent evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies, but “Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from 900 to 1600″. It broadly agreed with the basic findings of the original MBH studies which had subsequently been supported by other reconstructions and proxy records, while emphasising uncertainties over earlier periods. The contested principal component analysis methodology had a small tendency to bias results so was not recommended, but it had little influence on the final reconstructions, and other methods produced similar results.”

Of all the various accusations and rebuttals, the one carrying the most weight with me is the NRC report because it “consisted of 12 scientists and statisticians from different disciplines” and “went through a rigorous review process involving 15 independent experts.”
Now, sure, the culture here is to disbelieve MBH98. However, the weight of the evidence is that the conclusions of MBH98 are generally sound.
To disbelieve MBH98 means you are putting your faith in two specific guys with whose views you happen to agree with, rather than a plethora of expert climate scientists and independent experts. It is a strange conclusion to come to for anyone who would claim to be a skeptical scientist.

Here’s Richard Muller of BEST (I suppose you’ve heard of them, right Pete?) on Mann’s Hokey Schtick.In an October 2004 Technology Review article, Muller discussed blog postings by McIntyre and McKitrick alleging that Mann, Bradley and Hughes did not do proper principal component analysis (PCA). In the article, Richard Muller stated:
McIntyre and McKitrick obtained part of the program that Mann used, and they found serious problems. Not only does the program not do conventional PCA, but it handles data normalization in a way that can only be described as mistaken.
Now comes the real shocker. This improper normalization procedure tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no trends. This method of generating random data is called “Monte Carlo” analysis, after the famous casino, and it is widely used in statistical analysis to test procedures. When McIntyre and McKitrick fed these random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape!
That discovery hit me like a bombshell, and I suspect it is having the same effect on many others. Suddenly the hockey stick, the poster-child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics. How could it happen?
You quote the ridiculous 97% consensus BS, you desperately cling to ‘pause/hiatus/plateau/etc.’ denial, and clearly you wouldn’t recognise an error bar if you were beaten over the head with it.
You flaunt your shiny little certificate as if you were the only person ever to acquire one and actually seem to believe it gives you the right to pontificate on subjects about which you clearly haven’t a clue, and to patronise posters who actually know what they are talking about.
If your mind was even half open, hell, a quarter open would be a start, you might actually have learned something about climate science. But it wasn’t. And you haven’t.
Sad, really sad.

Climate Pete says:It turns out had McKitrick used a different convention…&blah, blah, etc.
Here’s a ‘convention’ for you: Dr. McKitrick has never been forced to publish a Corrigendum like Mann was.
Citing Wikipedia is like citing Mann himself. It’s a complete waste of time for anyone wanting to understand what Mann really did. And of course, Mann hides out in his ivory tower. He doesn’t have the cojones to come down and meet with his critics. But in science, addressing your critics’ concerns is a necessary part of the process.
Michael Mann is what is known as a “charlatan”. He used unreplicable hocus-pocus to come up with fantastic results that no one else can reproduce by using the available proxies.
‘Climate Pete’ says:Saying that MBH 1998 is wrong is a fashionable meme…&etc.
Mann cherry-picked only those proxies that supported his fake chart, while hiding all the rest. For example, Mann buried the biggest number of proxies in an ftp file labeled “censored“.
If Mann had used the available proxies, there would have been no ‘hockey stick’ shape in his fabricated chart. So he played games, because he wanted to show something that wasn’t there.
That isn’t science. That’s cherry-picking the data to arrive at a conclusion that Mann already decided that he wanted. And to this day, Mann has never released all his data, methods, metadata and methodologies to other scientists requesting them.
That’s not what a scientist does, that’s what a charlatan does.

Climate Pete says:Grantham Institute exists to promote the conclusions of mainstream climate science, confirmed by 97% of the climate expert.
Why read any more? If CP actually believes that nonsense, it isn’t worth reading the rest of his nonsense.
I advise “Pete” to do a simple archive search here, keyword: “97%”. He will find out right quick that the things he believes are thoroughly debunked idiocy of the first order.
Even asking anyone with common sense if “97%” of a large group believe in one specific thing will give Pete his answer: try asking a thousand Italians if the Pope is Catholic, and you will not get 97% to agree.
Pete is a religious True Believer. Michael Mann himself could have an epiphany, and tell ‘Climate Pete’ that his Hokey Stick graph was wrong. It wouldn’t matter to ‘Climate Pete’.
Dr. Leon Festinger provides the answer of why people like ‘Climate Pete’ believe in what have turned out to be nutty ideas. When Mrs. Keech’s ‘Seekers’ had sold all their worldly possessions, and were awaiting the imminent arrival of the flying saucer that would take them to safety while the world was destroyed, what happened when the flying saucer didn’t appear?
They didn’t admit they were wrong, or had been bamboozled. Instead, they doubled down, becoming even more certain that the flying saucer had been merely delayed. Their beliefs became even stronger.
‘Climate Pete’ fits that template exactly. The earth could plunge into another great Ice Age (which sometimes happens within a decade or two). It would not matter to Climate Pete. He is a True Believer, and as glaciers a mile thick once again descended on Europe and the mid-west U.S., Climate Pete would be making his same ridiculous arguments. Because martyrs will die to be right.
The plain fact is that the man-made global warming scare has turned out to be 100% wrong. It didn’t happen, it is not happening now, and there is zero indication that it will happen. Climate Pete has staked out his position, and he’s ready to be a martyr to the cause, no matter how silly he looks to the rest of us.

Climate Pete,
Regarding your earlier screed, I didn’t ‘misquote’ anything. I explained that I changed the quote to make it more honest. But if there’s anything that matters to you less than honesty, I don’t know what it could be. Next, you say:The main reason you do not get more dissenters from the views propagated on WUWT are that they are hardly made to feel very welcome, as your diatribe above demonstrates.
Wrong, as usual. We don’t get very many ‘dissenters’ here because the true consensus (for whatever that’s worth in science) is heavily on the side of skeptics of man-made global warming (MMGW).
You are one of just a handful: part of a self-serving clique who benefits from Grantham’s loot. Don’t try to deny it, he funnels money to organizations that employ propagandists like you.
Also, you get to comment here. On the majority of alarmist blogs I and many others are censored out. So whining about being one of the only ones trying to defend a conjecture that is being falsified every day by Planet Earth just makes you look silly and impotent.
Finally, you advise us to sell our souls like you did, and suck up the MOOC propaganda. Why would we want to hear only one side of any debate?? Only fools and religious True Believers want to do that. Scientific skeptics want to hear all sides of a debate. That’s how we sift the truth from the propaganda.
Your mind is made up and closed tight, there’s no doubt about that. You post reams of cherry-picked factoids that feed your confirmation bias, but you disregard everything else — including the central fact that there is no global warming, as was predicted incessantly by people like you. You were all flat wrong. And now you are even preposterously trying to claim that global warming is continuing as always! Truly, you exist in your own bubble of misinformation.
Please keep posting, Pete. Your nonsense is so easy to debunk that anyone can do it with half a brain. That keeps it fair, no?

dbstealey appears to be reverting to talk of “belief” and “religion” rather than addressing the substantive science.
He is even accusing me of being lying about being paid by the Grantham Institute!!!

You are one of just a handful: part of a self-serving clique who benefits from Grantham’s loot. Don’t try to deny it, he funnels money to organizations that employ propagandists like you.

There’s one standard response of guys like dbstealey – someone comes up with something that doesn’t fit his ideas so what does he do? Answer, categorise that person as part of an organised climate science conspiracy theory (which if it were to exist would have to be the biggest, best organised, most tightly-knit and most secretive conspiracy ever! And my part in it is to take money from the Grantham Institute, apparently.
So, dbstealey, you claim you are a skeptic, and therefore evidence driven. What evidence do you have that I am paid by the Grantham Institute?
Making accusations on the basis of no evidence is not what skeptic or skeptical scientists do.
Most of the rest of your last two posts would be better delivered from a pulpit.
And lastly he says

Finally, you advise us to sell our souls like you did, and suck up the MOOC propaganda. Why would we want to hear only one side of any debate?? Only fools and religious True Believers want to do that. Scientific skeptics want to hear all sides of a debate. That’s how we sift the truth from the propaganda.

Logical fallacy here – false dichotomy – that investigating the case from one side prevents you from continuing to look at the case for the other side .
If you were a true science skeptic then you would wish to examine both sides of the debate, and taking a formal course such as a MOOC in atmospheric physics would be a natural part of that. My education and information exposure includes trips into WUWT and formal education on mainstream atmospheric physics and climate science topics.
So if you want to hear all sides of the debate then you need to hear the other side, and this does not stop you from listening to the side you are also on. In the meantime, you have no case for calling yourself unbiased or a skeptical scientist because you have just said you are not willing to expose yourself to education from the other side.
My intense suspicion is that you do not wish to expose yourself to formal education in atmospheric physics or climate science because it will undermine your current belief set – you are scared. Whereas I am here and engaged with the contrarians like you on this site. And that is the difference between us.
You are not behaving as you would describe a skeptical scientist should.

Climate Pete says that I’m……accusing me of being lying about being paid by the Grantham Institute!!!
Pete, before your head explodes, pay attention to what I wrote: I said that you benefit from Grantham’s largesse. And you do. Whether it’s directly, or indirectly through the organizations you inhabit.
Then you say I’ve accused you of being “part of an organised climate science conspiracy”.
Heh, it’s all in your fevered imagination, Pete. I never said that, either. What you’re doing is fabricating things I never said, and then arguing with them. That’s called a strawman fallacy, and it’s all you’ve got. You certainly don’t have reality on your side. For sure, you don’t have the necessary data. You’re winging it. You are bluffing.
Everything you wrote above is amusing. Like: If you were a true science skeptic then you would wish to examine both sides of the debate, and taking a formal course such as a MOOC in atmospheric physics…
I don’t need to be spoon-fed your propaganda, Pete. It’s wasted on me; readers learn far more here than in your propaganda course. I am not interested in anything that doesn’t include both sides of the debate, including verifiable facts and evidence — and that’s where you and your gang fall flat on your collective faces. Because you don’t have the necessary data.
Clearly this hasn’t sunk in yet, so try to sit up straight, and pay attention:
In science, DATA IS ESSENTIAL. Measurements are data.
But there are NO verifiable, testable measurements quantifying the fraction of man-made global warming (MMGW) out of total global warming from all sources including natural climate variability.
Do you understand that, Pete? (I ask, because up to now it seems you don’t understand.)
Without verifiable empirical DATA, the entire MMGW scare is just a baseless conjecture. An opinion. Nothing more. Science is not done by assertion, and the CO2=CAGW conjecture is nothing more than a data-free assertion.
Your entire argument — in fact, your entire Belief system — is based on a mere OPINION! Now tell us: how is that any different from a religion?
Finally, you say:There’s one standard response of guys like dbstealey…
There is only one credible response, Pete, and it is this: produce empirical, testable measurements quantifying the fraction of total global warming that you believe is caused by human CO2 emissions.
If you can do that, you will be the first, and I will man up and concede that you win the argument, and the whole debate.
But if you cannot produce those empirical measurements, then you lose the debate. Because all you’re doing is emitting a data-free assertion: claiming that human CO2 emissions cause dangerous global warming. But without verifiable data quantifying MMGW, you deserve to lose because you’re fooling no one here.
Best get started finding those real world measurements, Pete. Finding them is the only way you can rescue any credibility.

dbstealey,
It’s not clear that you even understand that there are two sides to the picture. Certainly you appear to have outright ignored without acknowledgement all evidence which challenges your beliefs.
You certainly make some very dogmatic statements, don’t you. I put up evidence and you ignore it and claim I have submitted no evidence.
So let us do an exercise. All you have to do is answer a few simple questions, for which the answers are in the thread above
Q1. What, in your view, do I (Climatepete) believe the two strongest pieces of evidence for warming since 1998 are?
Q2. What one piece of evidence do I believe best represents the different human and natural contribution to warming?
Q3. And what supporting paper do I link to, to show that at least two locations in the world support the major finding of the piece of evidence in Q2?
Let’s see whether you have actually been reading anything I said.

OK, let’s do this the easy way
Let us use a single chart to estimate the radiative forcing from 1998 to 2012, a period where DBStealey says there was no warming.
Here’s the chart :http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/heat_content2000m.jpg
We are going to use the blue line which is the 5-year average line, mainly because it is clear and present for the time periods we are talking about. So the final point on the chart is for 2012 which represents the average for the five years between 2010 and 2014.
The figure for OHC in 1998 was 6 x 10^22 J. The figure for OHC in 2012 was 18 x 10^22J. The difference between these two figures is 12 x 10^22 J. (If we took the red line for the end of 2014 which stood at 23.5 x 10^22 J then we would get a bigger answer out of the calculation, but we are not going to do this).
The earth’s area is 510 million square miles or 5.1 x 10^14 square metres.
There are approximately 31 million seconds in a year, so in 14 years there are 430 million seconds approximately.
So, if it is all going into the oceans, the average accumulation of heat over the whole earth in that time is
12 x 10^22 / (5.1 x 10^14 x 4.3 x 10^8) = 12 / (5.1 x 4.3) = 0.55 Watts per square metre.
Since this is not zero, then it is clear from the OHC figures that there has been warming between 1998 and 2012. Whether the figure should be higher because more heat was being stored below 2km we don’t know.
Therefore the inescapable conclusion is that global warming continued between 998 and 2012 at the rate of at least 0.55 Watts per square metre.
QED
And that is the basic evidence that dbstealey keep demanding, presented in the simplest way I can think of.

‘Climate’ Pete:
Posts a chart that he says will …estimate the radiative forcing….
Pete, what will it take to get you to pay attention? ‘Estimating’ something is not data.
In science, data is essential. How many times do I have to repeat that? It hasn’t sunk in yet, so you may never understand. Everyone else understands. But you don’t. Why not?
Data is essential, and measurements are data. But you have produced no measurements of man-made global warming (MMGW). And here you only posted a screed estimating radiative forcing. Furthermore, you call it “evidence”. It’s not what we need. We need data. That means measurements. But you have no testable measurements quantifying the fraction of MMGW you claim exists. You are just winging it. <–Planet Earth agrees.
If you cannot produce empirical, testable measurements quantifying MMGW, then everything you’re arguing about is no more than your opinion. A data-free conjecture.
Without measurements you’ve got nothing. QED

Very disappointed that you haven’t added to your understanding of the reason for that temp rise. I gave you so many clues.
Very disgusted that you’d assume that any missing heat is below 2km.
Jordanesqe, you may dribble and shoot magnificently, but you ain’t hittin’ the ball.
=============

DBStealey is now trying to redefine words to suit his own biased conclusions.
My “estimate” is in fact a calculation from the data, as he could see full well for himself if he wasn’t blind.
If you want to be nit picking about it, which you so clearly do, then..
The calculation of radiative forcing from the graph of data from the ARGO floats shows that between 1998 and 2012 the radiative forcing was at least 0.55 W/m^2.

Climate Pete, wake up:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/files/2014/06/newchart.jpg
Global warming has STOPPED.
All your long rants are just a diversion from reality. It is you who is trying to redefine words to suit your own biased conclusions.
Your endless tap-dancing is just deflection. The man-made global warming scare has been debunked. You just cannot accept that fact, because your mind is closed to what’s happening in the real world.

Levitus et. al. is not data. Its a reanalysis. A reanalysis is a data initiated model it is not data. Reanalysis can be useful for infilling missing data with model estimates but it is not data.
Warmmoner scientists know that reanalysis is not data but they will carefully parse their words so ignorant people such as yourself who don’t know what reanalysis is will confuse it with real data.

Ok…um…you DO realize that your Global Ocean Heat Content measurement of from 0-2000 Meters involves a VOLUME calculation per heat joule that is much different from a surface area heat/joule calculation right?
You ran your global warming calculation as if the ocean is “flat” and all of it’s heat is contained in the “surface area” that is part of your statement that “Earth’s area is 510 million square miles”.

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/heat_content2000m.jpg
This shows at least 0.55 W/m^2 is entering the earth system.and is being stored 0-2000m in the oceans. That is warming as climate scientists and all true scientists understand it.
Throwing irrelevant graphs out at random does not affect this fact. If you can’t tell the difference between what is relevant and what is not you shouldn’t pretend to understand science.
The sea surface is defined as between zero and up to 20 metres deep. That is 1% of the ARGO float depth ranges, so the heat from the surface is almost irrelevant to working out how much heat is going into the ocean.
And surface temperatures (aland or ocean) are just a reflection of where the warming is going – they do not define the warming. The warming is defined by the energy entering the earth system. Which has been at least 0.55 W/m^2 from 1998 through 2012.
The worry is what happens when a larger fraction of the new net heat entering at the top of the atmosphere starts to go into surface warming instead of into OHC. You might feel reassured that this fraction has been lower recently, but there is not indication at all that it will remain low as the long-term average is much higher than at present.

Radiative forcing is normally defined as the difference at the top of the atmosphere between the incoming solar radiation (which is virtually all the incoming) and the total outgoing radiation which is a mixture of the high-energy solar wavelengths and lower energy infra-red wavelengths.

So, the sun is sending in more radiation than the Earth is sending back into space. Which according to the laws of physics means that the Earth system is out of balance with the Sun, and has some warming up to do, in order to catch up with the Sun’s incoming energy. And, according to the laws of physics, as the Earth systems temperature rises, the amount of energy that Earth radiates back out to space will increase too. That’s not so hard to understand is it?

Most of the energy from radiative forcing (the net energy coming in at the top of the atmosphere) will generally go mainly into ocean warming, which is just as well. If any significant fraction of it went into surface warming we would all fry pretty quick.

Let’s do another estimate of radiative forcing, this time from dbstealey’s graphhttps://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/trend-ocean-0to2000m-temps-argo-2005-2012.jpg?w=700
The title says the average ocean warming is 0.02 degrees C per decade. The ocean comprise approximately 70% of the earth’s surface and the temperatures in the graph are for depths of 0-2000m.
So the additional heat stored per decade per square metre of ocean is 0.02 x 4,200 J/kg (specific heat of water) x 1000 kg/cubic metre x 2000 metres depth = 0.02 x 8,400,000,000 J = 168,000,000 J. There are approximately 310m seconds in a decade so the rate of heat storage is 1.68 x 10^8 / 3.10 x 10^8 = 0.54 W / square metre of ocean
However, the oceans cover only 70% of the earth’s surface so the radiative forcing using this estimate is 0.54 x 70% = 0.38 W/sq m.
0.02 could mean anything form 0.0150 to 0.0249 so this particular calculation has a larger range than the previous one.

Now translate your results into watts per CUBIC meter per volume of the ocean instead of flat square meters because the ocean is DEEP as well as wide.
And you might want to check out a map of the known marine geothermal hotspots…you know…where measurable geothermal activity takes place on the ocean floor…it’s just eerie how many of the warm spots on dbstealey’s chart are in those exact locations. But I’m just sure that you can scientifically explain how heat sinks DOWN from the surface due to radiative forcing, in direct opposition to all known laws of physics, instead of RISING from the ocean floor after being spewed out by submarine thermal venting. Right?

Climate Pete,
Everything you posted upthread deliberately avoids the question I’ve repeatedly asked you. That’s because you have no credible way to answer it. Your arguments fail because you are not able to quantify man-made global warming (MMGW). Without that, your entire position amounts to no more than your personal opinion. It’s a statement without the necessary supporting data. An assertion, nothing more. All you have are you home-made “calculations”, and “estimats”, which are debunked by the real world: global warming stopped many years ago.
You cannot back up your ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ scare with any measurements. The planet herself is making it crystal clear that you were flat wrong. There’s no getting around it: your premise has been falsified. It is being falsified by the only Authority that matters: the real world.
The difference between your kind and scientific skeptics is that skeptics will admit it when reality shows we’re wrong. But you refuse to admit what everyone can plainly see: your conjecture has been falsified. Your endlessly predicted global warming never happened. Without that, nothing you write matters. You were wrong, end of story.
When that happens, Pete, the honest/ethical thing to do is to man-up and admit that based on the information available a the time, your conjecture seemed reasonable, but subsequent events have shown that it was wrong. Then you can say, let’s all work together to figure out why.
By doing that you earn respect. You show yourself to be an honest scientist. But by continuing to argue for something that is clearly not happening, you become a parody of Eric Hoffer’s ‘true believer’. You get no respect, only well deserved ridicule.
You want respect? Then either produce measurements quantifying man-made global warming, or admit that MMGW is merely an unproven conjecture; an opinion unsupported by any measurements.
It’s either/or, Pete. You’ve been arguing that global warming is continuing as usual, and that climate catastrophe is right around the corner. This is a science site. If you continue with your stubborn nonsense, you’re in the wrong place. You need to find a fantasy blog, or a humour blog, or a religion blog.

From the conclusion of “Earth’s Energy Imbalance” by Trenberth et al 2014- NCAR using a grant from NASA:
“Thus, state-of-the-art observations and basic analysis are unable to completely account for recent energy variability at interannual time scales, since they provide either an incoherent narrative or imply error bars too large to make the products useful. Both TOA radiation and OHC datasets need to be improved further. A vital need exists for OHC datasets of at least seasonal resolution, with care taken to reduce spurious noise, if real variations in nature are to be adequately understood.”
Let me translate that for you Climate Pete-
Even the BEST instruments we currently have cannot accurately measure Earth’s energy balance because they either don’t make sense or the margins of error are larger than the actual results, which pretty much means we’re not sure where the noise ends and the actual truth begins. Both the TOA and the OHC data need work.
Translated even further- “We’ve been guessing all along and we still can’t be sure”.

Kevin Trenberth is quite frequently capable of humble candor. Like when in 2008 for an NPR interview he speculated that all of what has been termed ‘missing heat’ may have have already been re-radiated out to space.
It’s bad. On that basis I keep holding out hope for him, and then he goes and pulls another stupid trick. Lawsa’ Mighty, what will I do with that scoundrel? Give me strength.
=====================

Gavin Schmidt — I Got The Data In Me
(most sorry Kiki Dee)
I got no troubles at NASA
I’m a rocket nothing can stop
Survival’s always the first law
And I’m in with those at the top
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Man is the measure
Of all things that be!
The Progressive Alliance
And it’s New Age Science
Say i got the data in me
I work in the mists and the fogs
By methods that none can review
To hide like a fox from the dogs
The premise of all that I do
The thermometers all want skilling
If their readings are not alarming
As the early ones all need chilling
So the later ones all need warming
Man is the measure
Of all things that be!
What Protagoras said
Onto Nietzsche led
So I got the data in me
The truth’s a consensus of thought
We agree to agree about
A joy that we so long have sought
A state of mind lacking all doubt
We are born uncertain of heart
Living in fear of things unknown
And consensus is finally the start
Of our souls becoming our own
Man is the measure
Of all things that be!
To Progressive drums
The Superman comes!
And I got the data in me
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Eugene WR Gallun

Final version I think
Gavin Schmidt — I Got The Data In Me
(most sorry Kiki Dee)
I got no troubles at NASA
I’m a rocket nothing can stop
Survival’s always the first law
And I’m in with those at the top
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Man is the measure
Of all things that be
The Progressive Alliance
And it’s New Age Science
Say I got the data in me
I work in the mists and the fogs
By methods that none can review
To hide like a fox from the dogs
The premise of all that I do
The thermometers all want skilling
If their readings are not alarming
As the early ones all need chilling
So the later ones all need warming
Man is the measure
Of all things that be!
What Protagoras said
Onto Nietzsche led
So I got the data in me
The truth’s a consensus of thought
We agree to agree about
That joy which so long we have sought
Our minds nevermore knowing doubt
We are born uncertain of heart
And live in fear of things unknown
But consensus is truly the start
Of our souls becoming our own
Man is the measure
Of all things that be!
To Progressive drums
The Superman comes!
And I got the data in me
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Eugene WR Gallun

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